Spinning Through Space
by TheBigCat
Summary: Traveling through time and space in a cardboard box, with a boy and his tiger. "Well," mused Rose Tyler. "I doubt my life would be any more interesting at home, so... why not?" A crossover, of sorts. CURRENT EPISODE- 6:1- Dalek
1. Episode 1:1

**(Disclaimer: If a mysterious boy comes up to you and asks if you'd like to travel with him and his tiger... SAY YES. SAY YES.)**

BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP.

A hand shot out from underneath the covers and slammed down hard on the alarm clock's Snooze Button. The hand flailed about in the air for a moment, before ripping off the sheets, revealing a teenage girl with messy blonde hair. She groaned for a moment, still sleepy, before tumbling out of bed. The room was pink, various shades of it mixed with the slightest bit of purple. She pulled on some clothes- a simple pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. Quickly and efficiently making her bed, she grabbed a pair of shoes off the rack from the corner of the room, and walked out of the room, flicking off the light as she went. A middle-aged woman, still in her pajamas, bustled about the kitchen, making breakfast. She glanced up as the girl stepped into the room, and sat down in a chair.

"Morning, Rose," she told her, and served her some toast. Rose grabbed it and hungrily chowed down.

"G'morning, Mum."

She slipped on a jacket, and exited the house. It sat on a slight rise, just above the other houses in the neighbourhood. The sign in front of the arrangement of houses and apartments read, in big, bold letters 'POWELL ESTATE'. Rose strolled down to the bus stop, and casually waited for a bus to arrive. A few stragglers were seated around the bus stop, but she ignored them, fixated on her mobile phone. A text had just arrived from her friend, and she was focused on replying to her. A bus pulled up, and Rose climbed on, and sat down in a seat, still reading her social media updates. The bus chugged along the road, stopping only to pick up the customary early-morning workers. Rose glanced out the grimy bus window, noting her reflection. She could use a trip to the hair salon, the dye was wearing off, and the brown was showing through. She exited the bus as it pulled up at Henrick's. She pushed open the glass double doors, and began her job.

* * *

The day passed, as it usually does. Rose showed the customers at the store to the areas that they wanted. She collected cash at the register, and filed reports. At lunchtime, she met up with her boyfriend, Mickey, in the square and they ate together, teasing each other as they did. As the day wound to a close, an announcement came over the Tannoy.

"_This is a customer announcement. The store will be closing in five minutes. Thank you._"

Rose headed towards the exit, and a guard shook a plastic bag at her. She noticed, and took it, telling the guard that she'd deliver it to the Chief Electrician right then. She dashed across to the lift and took it to the basement. It was dark and gloomy down there, and Rose was more than a little spooked. She crept along the darkly illuminated hallway, calling softly.

"Wilson? Wilson, I've got the lottery money!"

There was a noise behind her, and she spun around. There was nothing there.

"Wilson! Where are you? This isn't funny! Wilson?"

She rapped for a moment on his office door. There was no reply, but a crash echoed from one of the storerooms. She headed directly for it.

"Wilson? It's Rose."

She carefully opened the storeroom door, and flicked on the lights. There was absolutely no one in there. Shop dummies stood in various states of dress, and boxes were strewn across the room. Wire hangers hung loosely on racks.

"Hello?" she called, and made her way across the storeroom, her gaze searching the area. Still, no one. "Is anyone down here?"

There was a creak, and she glanced in the direction of it. A shop dummy had been moved. But still, no sign of human life.

And that was when the dummies began to move.

She backed away slowly, not exactly afraid. It was probably a student prank, after all. But they continued for her, moving slightly unsteadily. Plastic dummies were approaching from all directions.

"Yeah, this is really funny," she informed them sarcastically. "Can you please stop this now?"

The dummies didn't listen, and she was now stuck between a coat rack and the wall. A narrow water pipe pressed at her head. The dummies were surrounding her, and she began to feel slightly afraid. "Who are you?"

And then a tiny hand grabbed hers. She looked down, and saw a small boy with spiky blonde hair that seemed to defy gravity, staring at her with piercing blue eyes. He was clutching a stuffed tiger with one hand.

"Run!" he told her, and the water pipe exploded. He gripped her arm tightly, and they were off. He tore across the room with inhuman speed, practically dragging her behind him. They reached the lift, and dashed inside. He jabbed the 'Close' button frantically, but the plastic shop dummies were advancing.

"Get them, Hobbes!" he yelled at the tiger. Rose couldn't have been entirely sure what happened, but the plastic dummies were suddenly MOVING BACK from the stuffed tiger, which had inexplicably moved across the lift, and then the doors were closing, and a plastic arm lay on the ground next to them.

"What?" Rose managed weakly. The boy turned towards her.

"Oh, I almost forgot."

He hit her on the head with a rubber hammer. Rose stumbled back, shocked.

"What was that-!"

She then noticed a tiger standing on two legs, leaning against the side of the lift, and quickly changed tack.

"What are you?"

"A tiger," the tiger replied calmly. "Hello. I'm Hobbes."

"A...tiger..." Rose was having trouble getting her mind around this.

"What, you were just faced with homicidal shop models, and you're surprised by a talking tiger?"

Rose blinked. "They aren't homicidal, it was just a student prank... wasn't it?" She wasn't entirely sure. What else could it be, though?

The boy gave a superior snort, and tossed her the plastic arm from the floor. "Does this feel like a prank to you?"

She ran her hands over it. "What in the-"

The lift dinged, and shuddered to a halt. Rose stumbled out of the lift, still staring in shock at the boy and his tiger. He gave her a little shove towards the exit at the back, and she immediately started walking.

"But what are you doing here?" she asked them.

"Trying to get rid of them, of course," Hobbes told her. He held up an object that looked vaguely like a remote control, but with a lot more buttons. "The controller is around here somewhere, and we're here to stop the Earth being destroyed." He glanced over at the boy. "This is the, what?"

"Seventy-th time," he completed. He opened the exit door, and gestured with his hand out the door. "What was your name?"

"Rose," Rose told him. "Rose Tyler."

He gave her a small wave. "Nice to meet you, Rose Tyler. I'm Calvin." He grabbed the remote control from Hobbes with a swift movement, and held it up, looking slightly deranged. "Run for your life!"

With that, he slammed the exit door, leaving Rose and Hobbes staring at the door.

"You'd better run," advised Hobbes. "When he says something like that, it usually means one of three things; one, there's an immense danger and he's being all noble and sacrificial; two, he's about to go work on a birthday surprise for someone and doesn't want us to see, or three, he's about to blow something up. Since two is a bit unlikely, we really should move."

"Oh!" Rose exclaimed, and tucked the plastic hand into her belt. "Let's move, then."

They dashed out into the darkened street, Rose glancing quickly behind her. The looming figure of the Henrick's building was still standing. Nothing notable had happened. They had reached two blocks over when the explosion occurred.

It was spectacular, really. Plumes of red-white flame spurted out of the windows, seemingly in slow motion. The roof collapsed into shreds, the shrapnel flying every which way.

"That's my cue, then," decided Hobbes, brushing off dust from his fur. He extended a paw to Rose, who shook it tentatively. "It was nice to meet you, Rose. We might see you later, then?"

He winked at her, and strode off into the darkness.

_Did a stuffed tiger just flirt with me? _she wondered.

* * *

The next day, Rose was lying on the couch, watching the news. They were displaying the results of Calvin meeting an explosives detonator. Her mother was on the phone with a friend.

"-I know. It's on the telly. It's everywhere. She's lucky to be alive. Honestly, it's aged her. Skin like an old bible. Walking in now you'd think I was her daughter."

Rose's boyfriend, Mickey, walked in the door. He was a dark skinned, close-shaven man, and greeted Rose's mum with a wide smile and a hug.

"Hi, Jackie! Just came in to say hello to Rose." He turned to the aforementioned girl, who was staring absently at the television screen. "Why didn't you call? You could have been dead!"

Rose waved a hand dismissively. "It's fine! I'm alive, don't make a fuss."

"What was it, though? Did you see what caused it."

Rose closed her eyes for a moment. "No. I was outside the shop. I didn't see anything."

They continued with the idle small talk for a moment, before kissing. Mickey made for the door. His gaze fell on the plastic dummy arm, and he swooped it up, pretending it was strangling him. Rose laughed in slight amusement, and he dropped it, laughing also.

"Bye, babe. See you later."

And he left.

* * *

The day after that, Rose's alarm went off again. She hopped out of bed, intending to go to work, but then remembered.

"Oh. It's blown up."

She sighed, and instead pulled on a fluffy pink bath robe, and strolled casually into the kitchen. Her mum brandished a phone at her.

"Rose, you should sue for trauma! You need some money for a job, Shirleen knows a person…"

"Not now, mum," Rose told her.

She walked into the hallway, intending to pick up the newspaper from where it had been thrown carelessly yesterday, but paused when she heard a rattling noise coming from outside the door. She listened intently. Yes, there was definitely someone (or something) there. The cat flap, long forgotten because of the fact there were no cats in the Tyler household, was jittering slightly. A puff of smoke came from where a screw was, and when it dissipated, the screw was gone. This was repeated several times, and the cat flap fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Rose snatched it up, and bent down to look through the gap in the door.

An unmistakable head with spiky blonde hair peered back at her. She yelped, and staggered backwards a few steps, before yanking open the door and glaring at Calvin, who stood there, clutching a water gun.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I live here!" Rose shot back.

"Well, what did you go and do that for?"

"Because I do. I'm only at home because someone blew up my job," she said accusingly, pointing a finger at him.

Hobbes stepped up next to him, and waved at Rose, before turning to Calvin. "We must have got the wrong signal. Unless she's plastic...?"

Calvin tapped Rose on the forehead, and shook his head. "Nope. She's a complete bonehead. Well, we must be off." He turned to leave, but Rose gripped him firmly by the arm and dragged him inside.

"No. Not until you tell me what's going on here."

Calvin protested weakly, but the door shut with a loud bang. Hobbes slipped through the cat flap, and followed them.

"Who is it?" Jackie called from her room.

"Boy scout, selling cookies," Rose called back, without missing a beat. "He wanted a drink of water."

"Boy scout?" Calvin mouthed, and waved quickly at Jackie while passing her room. She blinked.

"Oh, aren't you just the cutest little thing!" she cooed.

"Yes, I am," Calvin responded, looking quite pleased.

"I just want to cuddle you to death!"

"...no."

Calvin exited stage left, and Hobbes followed, wolf whistling at Jackie, and blowing her a kiss. In the kitchen, Rose poured two cups of milk, and a bowl of it for Hobbes, and pushed it at them. Hobbes grinned in appreciation, and began lapping it up.

"We should go to the police. Seriously. All of us."

Calvin paid her no heed, flipping through magazines and examining things on the shelves.

"They said on the news that they found a body."

Hobbes spotted a pack of cards and unsuccessfully attempted to shuffle them. The cards went flying. There was a scuffle behind them, and he turned around.

"Rose," Hobbes queried. "Do you have any cats?"

"Apart from you? No."

She came in from the other room, just as the plastic arm from the other day launched itself up at Calvin's face. He gargled for a moment, before attempting to wrestle it off. Hobbes noticed, and grabbed the arm as well. They weren't having much luck, and it was slowly attempting to strangle him. Rose was oblivious.

"I told Mickey to chuck that out. You're all the same. Give a man a plastic hand. Anyway, I don't even know your name. Calvin, what was it?"

Hobbes finally succeeded in prising it off Calvin's neck, and it flew towards Rose. It attached itself to her face, and she screamed. Calvin grabbed his water gun, and fired it at the arm. Instead of spurting out water, it somehow emitted a flash of blue light. The plastic appendage fell to the floor, motionless.

Hobbes picked it up, laughing slightly. "There, you see? 'Armless."

Calvin snatched it up off him. "Oh yeah?"

There was a resounding smack as plastic hit fur.

* * *

"You can't just go swanning off like this!" Rose yelled as the boy and the tiger descended the stairwell on the side of the complex. Calvin shrugged carelessly.

"Yes, we can. See, this is us. Swanning off. See ya."

"But that arm was moving! It tried to kill me!"

"Wow, this girl is a genius," he told Hobbes.

"You can't walk away! That's not fair! You've got to tell me what's going on!" she protested.  
"No, we don't."

They were outside the block of flats, now, Rose hurrying to catch up to the demented adrenaline of a six-year-old boy and a tiger.

"All right, then. I'll go to the police." she challenged. "I'll tell everyone. You said, if I did that, I'd get people killed. So, your choice. Tell me, or I'll start talking."

Hobbes laughed. "Is that supposed to sound impressive."

"Uh, yeah."

"It doesn't work."

"Who are you!" she threw up her hands in exasperation.

"We're Calvin and Hobbes."

"Yeah, but Calvin what? Don't you have a last name?"

"Well, I did, but Hobbes ate it."

"Wait, WHAT?"

"So, Calvin, then."

"Hello!" he waved the plastic arm at her.

"Come on, then. You can tell me. I've seen enough. Are you, like, some division of the X-Files?"

"No way," Hobbes scoffed. "We're just travellers. We tend to get caught up in these sorts of things, though."

"Don't tell her anything," Calvin warned the tiger. "She's a SLIMY GIRL, remember?"

"I'm not slimy," Rose protested. "But what have I done wrong? How comes those plastic things keep coming after me?"

"They weren't coming after you, they were coming after us. You were an accident. It was after us not you. Last night, in the shop, we were there, you blundered in, almost ruined the whole thing. This morning, we were tracking it down, it was tracking us down. The only reason it fixed on you is 'cos you've met us."

"So, the world revolves around you two."

"Sort of, yeah," Hobbes replied.

"Your egos are way too big."

"Sort of, yeah."

They were in the middle of a park now. All three of them stopped, facing each other.

"Tell me what's happening."

Calvin sighed, and relented. "It's living plastic. The thing controlling it projects life into the arm. I cut off the signal, dead. It's controlling it through though control. We're trying to stop the thing from overthrowing the human race and destroying you all."

"I'm supposed to believe that."

"Sort of, yeah," Hobbes told her.

"Really though, Calvin. Who are you? Why is there a talking tiger here?"

"Do you know like we were saying about the Earth revolving?" he told her. "It's like when you were a kid. The first time they tell you the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. I can't feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling round the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour, and I can't feel it. My timeline is different to yours. I've been six for hundreds of years, and the only way I've managed to stay sane is because I've had my best friend here with me. We save the world together. Me and Hobbes." He stepped next to his friend. "We're falling through space, him and me, clinging to the knowledge that we're doing something good, and if we let go... That's who I am. Now, forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home."

He turned to a corner of the street that had a cardboard box sitting on it, and Hobbes followed, glancing back in her direction once. Rose Tyler turned towards home and set off, but she looked back once. Just once. And in that one moment she looked back, the cardboard box was gone.

**(A/N: This was ****originally posted in my Big Blue Box of Randomness, and is a direct parody of the Doctor Who episode, as you can plainly see. This stretched out much longer than I thought it would, so I'm splitting it up into two parts. Please, PLEASE tell me if you want me to continue. If I do get enough positive feedback, I'm going to post part two next week. See you then, I guess.  
**

**~Kitty)**


	2. Episode 1:2

**(Disclaimer: Make sure your boyfriend doesn't melt if you hook his head up to the Time Machine.)**

_**Episode 1:2- Rose**_

"Hey, Rosie!" Mickey greeted Rose at his flat, and they kissed briefly. "Coffee?"

"Only if you wash the mug first," she told him, and grinned teasingly. "Can I use your internet?"

"Sure. Don't read my emails, though!"

She smiled at him, and opened up Google. She first typed in 'Calvin'. Something about a theologist came up, but nothing related. 'Calvin and Hobbes' was next. Some cartoon about a girl and a lion was all that that displayed. She then tried 'Calvin living plastic'. Things about a college for doctors specializing in plastic surgery. Pausing for a moment, she decided to try a bit of a stretch. She carefully tapped in 'Calvin cardboard box'. And that was it. At the top there was a link leading to a page titled 'Calvin Who?' There was a request for people who had seen a person to call a number. She scrolled down, heart in her throat. A photo, blurry, but still recognizable, showed a spiky haired boy clutching a toy tiger.

* * *

"He could be dangerous," protested Mickey. They were driving to the house belonging to the website man.

"He's safe. He's got a wife and kids."

"Yeah, who told you that? He did. That's exactly what an internet lunatic murderer would say."

She laughed, as they pulled up at a suburban house. A neighbour was putting out a bin, and he gave Mickey a death glare. Rose walked up to a door, and knocked. A teenage boy answered it, and she smiled at him.

"Hi. I've come to see Dirk?"

The boy gave her a bored look, and called over his shoulder. "Hey, Dad. It's one of your nutters again."

An obvious couch potato came up to the door, and waved. "Hello. You must be Rose?

I'm Dirk."

Rose gave him an awkward smile. "I'd better tell you now, my boyfriends in the car just in case you're trying to kill me."

Dirk waved at Mickey, who scowled through the glass.

"Who is it?" called a woman from inside the house.

"Oh, it's something to do with Calvin. She's been reading the website," he told her, and then started waddling through the house. "Please, come through. I'm in the shed."

The shed was quite something. There were shelves and shelves of books and binders, and pinboards with information and pictures

tacked to them carefully. An old-fashioned computer was balanced on a desk that seemed much too small for its weight.

" A lot of this stuff's quite sensitive," he explained, taking down a few binders and flipping through them. "I couldn't just send it to you. People might intercept it, if you know what I mean. If you dig deep enough and keep a lively mind, this Calvin keeps cropping up all over the place. Political diaries, legends, conspiracy theories, even ghost stories. No last name, just Calvin. Always Calvin, and sometimes Hobbes. And the title seems to have been passed down from father to son. It appears to be an inheritance. That's your Calvin there, isn't it?"

He jabbed a pudgy finger at a black and white photograph of Kennedy's cottage. There was a huge crowd gathered next to it, but a head of spiky hair clearly stood out.

"Assassination of President Kennedy," Rose murmured, tracing the outline of the crowd. Dirk flipped a few more pages.

"1912. The Daniels family of Southampton. And over here..."

The same boy, sitting on a volleyball with his tiger next to him was there.

"This is a sketch from somewhere in the 1800s," Dirk pointed out. "This one washed up on the coast of Sumatra on the very day Krakatoa exploded. Calvin is a legend woven throughout history. When disaster comes, he's there. He brings the storm in his wake and he has two constant companions."

Rose stood up, vaguely creeped out. "Who?"

"That tiger of his, and Death."

You could practically hear the dramatic organ chords in the background.

* * *

Outside, Mickey noticed a wheelie bin that was constantly thumping its way closer and closer to him. He rolled down the window and peeked out at it. It stopped promptly. He waved a fist in its direction. The bin didn't move. Mickey rolled up the window again, and put some classical music on. The bin began moving towards him again. This time, he opened the car door, and glared at it. It stopped in its tracks, and he began listening to the radio again.

The bin began moving again.

Mickey slammed open the car door and stormed over to the bin.

"One...two...three!" he counted, and flung open the lid. There was nothing inside. He frowned slightly, and made as if to move away. The plastic came away with his hands. It was stretchy, a bit like melted cheese. Mickey tried to pull away, but the melted plastic stuck fast. He was in a tug-of-war with a wheelie bin, and he was losing. The bin growled, and flexed. It bent almost in half, and flicked Mickey into it, swallowing him with a burp.

* * *

Rose made her way out to the car, sighing dramatically. "You were right, he's a nutter. You win! What are we going to do tonight?"

Mickey was obviously plastic, but Rose didn't notice. "P-p-pizza!" he stuttered.

"Or Mexican," offered Rose.

"Pizza!" declared Plastic Mickey, and he started the car. It bumped unsteadily down the road. This Mickey obviously never took driving classes.

* * *

Rose was still oblivious to the fact that Mickey was, well, an oversized Ken doll. She was chattering on about herself, not a care in the world.

"Do you think I should try the hospital? Suki said they had jobs going in the canteen. Is that it then, dishing out chips. I could do A Levels. I don't know. It's all Jimmy Stone's fault. I only left school because of him. Look where he ended up. What do you think?"

P-Mickey (that's what we're calling him now) ignored her, and gripped her arm. "Where did you meet Calvin?"

"Oh, that's nice. Wasn't I talking about myself?"  
"Because it started at the shop, right? Isn't that what happened?" P-Mickey continued.

"What are you talking about?" Rose demanded, attempting to wriggle her way out of Mickey's grip.

"But you can trust me, sweetheart. Babe," his voice went deep and throaty. "Sugar, babe, sugar. You can tell me anything. Tell me about Calvin and Hobbes and what they're planning, and I can help you, Rose. Because that's all I really want to do, sweetheart, babe, babe, sugar, sweetheart."

"Okay, you're freaking me out."

"Two anchovy pizzas," a waiter announced.

"They're not ours," Rose told him.

"I need to find out how much you know!" P-Mickey yelled.

"Doesn't anyone want these pizzas?" asked the waiter again.

"They're not ours," P-Mickey yelled at the waiter. He was an awfully short waiter. In fact, when the fake Mickey looked down, he noticed...

"Oh. Found you!" the Mickey thing declared. Calvin, dressed as a waiter, grinned darkly, and smashed a pizza plate over its head. Complete with anchovy pizza. Hobbes did the same with the matching pizza, and knocked off his head. Calvin caught it, and stared at it for a moment.

"That won't stop me," the plastic head told him, and the body formed guns on its hands, before starting to shoot. Rose screamed, and backed away. So did everyone else in the room. Hobbes waved at Rose.

"Nice to see you again!" he yelled.

"Yeah, you too!" Rose called back, hitting the fire alarm. "Everyone out! Get out now!"

"Run!" screamed Calvin, and dashed for the emergency exit, shedding his waiter costume as he did. Hobbes and Rose followed.

"So, anything interesting happen with you?" Hobbes asked casually.

"Oh, not much," she replied, still dashing. "Met up with my boyfriend, found a conspiracy theorist who thinks you two are aliens, got attacked by a plastic version of the same boyfriend... the usual, you know."

They ran through the kitchens, and burst out the back door. There was a locked up exit door, and Rose ran to it.

"Open it up!" she called. "Use that thing you used on the cat flap!"

"Transmogrifier Gun, and let's go in here instead," Calvin said, walking over to a cardboard box with 'Time Machine' written on it. He opened the top flaps, and jumped inside. His head disappeared from view, and Hobbes followed suit.

"There's not enough room for all of us in there!" Rose yelled. The P-Mickey was banging on the back door, and slowly breaking through. She looked back and forth desperately, trying to decide, and, abandoning all logic, poked her head into the box.

It was huge. The inside opened up to a vast console room, and Rose was only poking her head into a gap in the ceiling. She stumbled back with a gasp, and walked around the box twice. It was completely ordinary, and, as she picked it up, there was no hole in the bottom leading to an underground cavern. The Plastic Mickey was still working his way through the door, and after two more blasts, made its way through and towards her.

Rose screamed and threw caution to the winds. She dived, feet first into the box, and landed on a trampoline directly below the gap in the roof. She bounced twice, and dismounted. Hobbes looked up from a vast array of complex switches and dials.

"Nice of you to drop in," he said, grinning.

"It's...it's..." she stuttered, gazing around.

"Bigger on the inside? Yes, it is!" Calvin cheered, popping up from beneath the console, holding the plastic head of her boyfriend. "Or you could call it smaller on the outside, but, either way, welcome to the Time Machine!"

"The plastic thing's still up there," Rose reminded them.

"Oh, don't worry," Hobbes dismissed. "The combined forces of Genghis Khan couldn't get through there, and believe me, when we tested that, they certainly tried."

"But Time Machine?" Rose asked. "Couldn't you have thought of something slightly more creative? Like, the TARDIS?"

"What, to stand for Time And Relative Dimension In Space?"  
"Yes, exactly."

"Well, why would we call it that? That's stupid. We're calling it the TIME MACHINE."

"You're alien, aren't you," she said in a small voice, and let out a small sob.

"Yes, I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey," Calvin delivered deadpan.

"Really?" she asked.

"God, no, that would be stupid. I'm human, 112%. And Hobbes is 101% Bengal Tiger."

"Mickey's melting," Rose pointed out. Indeed he was. The head was hooked up to a set of wires and switches, and was slowly melting away...

"What? No!" Calvin wailed, flicking some switches. "You can't melt! You're our only lead! Hobbes, get a tracking fix on this!"

"On it," the tiger responded, hitting a button. "Hold on to your seats."

There was a brief jitter, and Mickey's head collapsed into a puddle of plastic.

"Did they kill him? Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?" Rose asked frantically.

"Oooh, I didn't think of that. Quite possibly, yes," Calvin told her.

"We're here," Hobbes sing-songed, and strolled to the trampoline. "See you up there."

"Come on, then," Calvin agreed. Hobbes jumped onto the trampoline, and bounced three times. On the last jump he sailed up and out the cardboard flaps. Calvin did the same.

"You can't go up there!" Rose exclaimed. "It's not safe!"

There was no reply. Rose sighed, and jumped up too.

"It's... moved," she said slowly, looking around. They were on a bridge. "How can it do that? How can it just move? We were over there, weren't we?"

Calvin and Hobbes ignored her, instead choosing to grumble and sulk.  
"We lost the signal," he informed her.

"That's all you care about!" she cried. "What am I going to tell his mother! Mickey's mother! My boyfriend is dead!"

"Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey," Calvin began. Hobbes tapped him on the shoulder.

"He's not a kid," the tiger told him.

"It's because I'm trying to save the life of everyone on Earth, okay?"

"Fine!" yelled Rose, throwing up her arms in the air. "What does this plastic have against us, anyway?"

"Nothing, in fact," Hobbes explained. "It loves you. You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. It's food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein plants rotted, so Earth, dinner!"

"How do we stop it, then?"

Calvin withdrew a small vial with blue liquid in it from his pocket. "Anti-plastic."

She began to grin. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. But first, I've got to find it. Where is it?"

"Where is what?"

"The transmitter," Hobbes took over. "The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."

"What does it look like?" Rose was getting into it now.

"Computer," Calvin directed towards a wristwatch that Rose hadn't noticed he was wearing. The watch beeped for a second, and then buzzed.

"Transmitter is round and about the size of two large skyscrapers. It is located in Central London," a woman's calm voice said.

"Thanks, computer. So, where could it be?" he began to stride along the bridge, brow wrinkled in thought. "It's big, round, must be invisible."

Rose and Hobbes shared a glance. He was standing directly in front of the London Eye.

"Are you going to tell him, or should I?" Rose asked Hobbes. He shrugged, grinning with barely concealed mirth.

"Hey, Calvin?" Rose called. He turned. Rose jabbed a finger behind him. He looked, and turned back at Rose. "What?"

Hobbes pointed. He looked, and turned back. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

Rose and Hobbes stepped up to him, and forcibly turned him around, angling his chin so he could see the massive Ferris Wheel. He stared for a moment before it clicked. "Oh. Brilliant!" he enthused, and ran off.

"Is he always like this...?" Rose asked tentatively. Hobbes nodded mutely.

* * *

"Think of it. Every single plastic thing on Earth. Coming alive," Calvin mused.

"The window shop dummies," Hobbes began.  
"The plastic trucks," Calvin added.

"The guns."

"The wires."

"The cables."

"The breast implants," Rose put in cheekily. Calvin and Hobbes gave her an odd look. Then Calvin cleared his throat. "Anyway. The transmitter's around here somewhere. Probably underground."

"Somewhere like... this?" Rose climbed down, over a railing, towards a large manhole entrance.

Hobbes wiggled his eyebrows. "Ooh. I like you."

They climbed down a short ladder into a brick-built area with lots of chains draped about. The went through a stone archway and into a multi-level area. The heat rose in waves around them. Rose wiped off some sweat from her brow. Calvin's watch beeped.

"Yes, computer?" he asked.

"The Nestene Consciousness. Currently inside the vat. A living plastic creature," the voice said cooly.

"I like your watch," Rose remarked offhandedly.

"Thanks. Now, I must be off to tip this antiplastic into the Consciousness. Stay here." He set off at a steady pace, down a catwalk, until he was just above the vat of weird flexing plastic stuff.

"I'd like to speak with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful treaty!" he bellowed. The stuff in the vat flexed and moaned. "Thank you."

"What's he doing?" Rose hissed. Hobbes shrugged, and motioned for her to come with him. Rose, having nothing better to do, followed.

"May I have permission to approach?" Calvin asked the vat. It grumbled in affirmative, and he moved forwards, close to the vat. Meanwhile, Rose spotted someone she knew. She dashed towards him.

"Oh my god! Mickey! Are you alright?"

"That thing down there, the liquid. Rose, it can talk!" he gasped. Rose wrinkled her nose.

"Ugh, you stink. Hobbes, they kept him alive!"

"Yeah, that was always a possibility."

Mickey eyed her curiously. "Rose, why are you talking to a stuffed tiger?"

"I'm not talking to a-" she caught herself. "Oh, yes. Well, he's good company."

Down at the vat, Calvin had lunged forwards with the vial of antiplastic, about to pour it in. Hobbes, however, noticed something bad. "Calvin!"

A pair of shop dummies seized the back of the boy's striped shirt just as he was about to drop the liquid in. One of them snatched it from his hand.

"Oh, c-" Calvin began, but shut up quickly. One rule Calvin and Hobbes had when they were travelling was "No swearing. Not even if a deadly alien monster is about to bite your head off."

To make matters worse, a door slid back to reveal the Time Machine.

"What's going on?" Rose yelled.

"It's the Time Machine! The Nestene's identified its superior technology. It's terrified. It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion! Get out, Rose; Hobbes! Just leg it now!"

"Damn it," Hobbes growled, getting ready to pounce. The two shop dummies made threatening motions towards him, and he froze.

Rose quickly grabbed her mobile phone, and dialed her mum.

"Mum?" she asked, as the person on the other end picked up. She listened for a moment. "Where are you, mum?" Pause. "No! Just go home! Go home right now!" A longer pause. "Mum! Mum!"

She put it back in her pocket, staring in disbelief. "She hung up."

Calvin was still struggling as the vat of plastic-type stuff started to swirl and glow. "It's activating! Just get out now, Hobbes!"

"The stairs have gone!" he yelled back. They dashed to the Time Machine, and Hobbes fumbled around in a fur pocket. "My key. I lost it."  
"Again?" Calvin yelled. "I thought you had learnt your lesson after last time!"

"I know! I'm sorry!"

"No!" Calvin struggled, as he was pushed to the edge of the vat. The Consciousness gurgled.

"TIME LORD," it hissed.

"No! I'm not a Time Lord! Why does everyone think that? It was just a stupid joke!"

Rose stood, fire flashing in her eyes. She thought for a moment, and grabbed Hobbes's arm. She dragged him down a level, and motioned to a chain sitting directly above them. The tiger's eyes lit up, and he interlocked his fingers for her to stand on.

"Three...two...one..." she counted, and he launched her up to grab the chain. She kept a firm grip as she spoke.

"I've got no A-Levels, no job, no future," she muttered. Hobbes raced up to stand next to her. He grabbed the chain and swung her back for momentum.

"But you know what I have got?" she yelled. "Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastic team. I've got the bronze!"

And with that, Hobbes pushed her. The chain sailed through the air, and she, in one swift movement, grabbed the anti plastic, and Calvin. She reached the apex of her swing, directly above the Nestene Consciousness vat, and dropped the vial in. Swinging back, Hobbes caught her, and gave her a massive thumbs up.

"Run!" Calvin cackled, not at all fazed by his close brush with death. They all ran to the Time Machine, Rose dragging Mickey along, and jumped into the vast dimension.

"Woo hoo!" Hobbes cheered, and the box dematerialized.

* * *

The box reappeared in the park that Rose had originally walked away from Calvin in. Rose bounded out of the cardboard box, gripping Mickey around the waist. "Fat lot of good YOU were," she told him, giving him a smack on the head.

"Nestene Consciousness?" Calvin grinned. "Easy."

"You would have been dead if it weren't for me," Rose accused them.

"Yes, I would. Thank you. Right then, I'll be off, unless, er, I don't know, you could come with us. This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe free of charge."

Rose considered. That little adventure was actually quite a lot of fun.

"Don't go with him," Mickey warned her.

"Is it always this dangerous?" Rose asked.

"Yep," Hobbes responded, popping the 'p'.

"Yeah, I can't. I've er, I've got to go and find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so... yeah."

"Alright, then. See you around," Calvin told her awkwardly. He jumped back into the box. It flickered for a moment, and then a wormhole opened up. The box flew into the wormhole and disappeared.

"Give him 5 minutes," Hobbes told her. "He'll realise he forgot me. Again."

He settled against the brick wall. "You know, he really does need someone to travel with. He would have died several times over if it weren't for this girl w picked up a while back. **Her name was Susie. Nice girl. Calvin didn't like her much... actually, they were arch-rivals. Frenemies, of sorts. But we had to leave her."  
**

Rose listened to this with a pensive look on her face. The air flickered, and the cardboard box was back. Calvin poked his head out.

"Hey Hobbes! Sorry I left you behind!" he turned to Rose. "Did I also mention that it travels in time?"

"That is the worst pickup line ever," Hobbes muttered behind his paw. Calvin pretended not to have heard. Traveling through time and space in a cardboard box, with a boy and his tiger. "Well," mused Rose . "'I doubt my life would be any more interesting at home, so... why not?".She beamed, and kissed Mickey on the cheek. "Thanks."

"I didn't do anything!" he protested.

"Exactly."

Rose dashed towards the box, and took a running leap in.

To the future.

**(A/N:**

**That took a week to finish. I hope you're happy. I'm definitely working on another chapter, but it may take a bit of time to complete. In other news, I've completed a cover page for this, but fanfiction dot net is being annoying and won't upload it. So, there's a link on my profile to it. Just scroll down to the list of stories, and find the LINKS section. **

**If you want more Doctor Who fun and games, try Into the Vortex. Fun story, lots of humour and parody.**

**See you later.**

**~Kitty)**


	3. Episode 2:1

**(Disclaimer- It's the end of the world! It's the end of the- oh, my mistake. It's only metal spiders.)**

_**Episode 2:1- The End of the World**_

"So," grinned Calvin, spinning around the console with an evil look on his face. "Where to? Past or future?"

"Future," Rose shot back.

Hobbes cranked a handle. "We are now set for the twenty-sixth century! Yes, they really did get the hovercars working, although they do tend to blow up slightly if you go past 80 km/h."

Rose shook her head, smiling. "You two think you're so great."

"We are so great!" protested Calvin. "You know what, the twenty-sixth century is boring. Let's go..." he cranked the handle a few more times. "...to the new Roman Empire! It is now 2000 years in your future."

"Boring," Hobbes disagreed. "I have a better idea."

"Oh, do tell," Calvin encouraged him. Hobbes gave an Evil Genius Laugh (patent pending) and spun the handle faster than before. He hit the large button on the middle of the console with a flourish, and gestured towards the trampoline that served as the box's exit. "After you," he told Rose, with a mock bow. The three of them exited the box and found themselves in a hallway. Calvin dashed over to a shutter that seemed to be covering up something, and opened it. There was a large bay window, giving a view of...

"The Earth," Rose realised with a start.

"Welcome to the year 5.5/apple/26," Hobbes announced.

"Yes, they really do start using fruits for years this far in the future," Calvin chimed in. "You really don't want to visit the 4/pear years. It gets really messy."

"But what is this? Why are we here?" Rose arched an eyebrow.  
"This, Rose Tyler," Hobbes told her grandly. "Is the end...of the Earth."  
"What?!"  
"Computer?" Calvin asked his wristwatch. It beeped for a moment, and then a cool female voice began to speak.

"Today is the day the sun expands to consume the Earth. You are currently on Platform One, where the party will begin in 15 minutes."

"Wow," Rose summarized.

"I know, right? Come on, let's go."

They set off at a steady walk towards the main room, where the gathering would take place.

"Shuttles five and six now docking. Guests are reminded that Platform One forbids the use of weapons, teleportation and religion. Earth Death is scheduled for fifteen thirty nine, followed by Drinks in the Manchester Suite," the Tannoy told them.

"What do they mean by guests?" Rose asked.

"Aliens, basically," Hobbes said casually. "The great and good are gathered here to... well, watch the Earth explode. For entertainment."

"And when you say 'the great and good'..."

"He means the rich people who basically have nothing better to do with their lives, yeah," Calvin finished. He threw open a wood-panelled door, and they walked into a bustle of colors and sounds. There was a group of tree-people, and some odd scaly things that were swishing their tails back and forth.

Rose stared around, but her two companions seemed to take it in stride.

"Go mingle," Calvin told her, giving her a slight push forwards. "This is your future, remember?"

Hobbes started towards a bunch of tigress babes relaxing in the corner, with a lustful look on his face. Rose shook her head slightly, grinning. He was such a flirt.

She wandered awkwardly around for a while, saying hello to the more human-looking of the aliens gathered. She grabbed a small thing that looked a bit like a canape, but smaller. And that was when she came face-to-face with the Face of Boe.

At least, that was how he introduced himself. He seemed to know her from somewhere, although if Rose had ever seen him in her life, she would have recognised him by then.

To paraphrase: the Face of Boe was a gigantic wrinkled head in a glorified jar.

Go figure.

Rose quickly made some sort of excuse to go away, not that the Face wasn't perfectly charming, but she was just weirded out a bit. The giving of gifts began. The tree-people gave her 'a clipping of their grandfather' and she tore out a little of her hair, and gave it to them as a 'clipping of herself'. Whenever someone offered her a gift, she accepted it and gave the same thing in return- a bit of her hair. By the end of the gift giving, she had received a sapling, a bagel, some spit to the face, some pretty colored stones that she put in her pocket, a pair of tweezers, and a ball. The ball was an odd, metallic thing that didn't actually absorb light.

"And last but not least," the steward announced. "Our very special guest. Ladies and gentlemen, and trees and multiforms, consider the Earth below. In memory of this dying world, we call forth the last Human. The Lady Cassandra O'Brien Dot Delta Seventeen."

The sliding doors opened, and in was wheeled a rack with skin stretched over it. At least, that was what it appeared to be. But the skin had eyes and a thin mouth. Which made it kinda weird.

"Thank you, thank you," the 'skin' simpered. "I know, I know it's shocking, isn't it? I've had my chin completely taken away and look at the difference. Look how thin I am. Thin and dainty. I don't look a day over two thousand. Moisturise me. Moisturise me," she added to her assistants, who promptly sprayed her with a watery mist.

Cassandra continued on with a long, ridiculous tangent about how ostriches breathed fire, and how iPods were massive boom boxes. She caught Calvin out of the corner of her eye, snickering at Cassandra's obliviousness.

The Adherents of the Repeated Meme, who were some creepy guys in black cloaks, were giving the metal spheres to everyone there, including the steward, who was politely declining. The Adherents refused to listen to him, and gave him a sphere anyway.

It was a bit too much for her, and so she decided to go outside to get some space. Quickly ducking through the heavy wood doors, no one saw her go. Except for Hobbes. He noticed, and tried to dart away after her. A tree-person blocked his path, and brandished a camera at him.

No one noticed a metal sphere opening up, revealing a metal spider inside.

* * *

Outside, Rose wandered over to a large window that was showing the scene outside. The Earth was sitting there, in a cocoon of blackness and stars, while the sun was drawing closer and closer. She fingered a small plaque, reading the inscription.

"The National Trust has kept the Earth preserved," she read aloud. "for the last 2 million years. The funds for holding the Sun back, however, have expired. The gravity satellites surrounding the Earth will stop holding it back in 20 minutes."

She blinked. "Wait, twenty minutes?"

The plaque then changed its text to read '19 minutes' instead, and from there went on to display an ad for Intergalactic Xox Burgers. "Ah."

A clunking sound from down the hallway drew her attention, and a pretty blue skinned, black haired woman approached, carrying a toolkit in her hand.

"Oh, hello," Rose said. "What's your name?"

The woman smiled, and bent down near an air vent. "You have to give us permission to talk."

"Oh. I, um, give you permission to talk?"

The woman began to remove the metal grating from the vent. "Thank you, miss. I'm Xandra. I won't be long, don't worry. Just have some maintenance to carry out, then I'll be on my way."

Rose sat down against the wall. "What sort of maintenance?"

"The Face of Boe has a glitch in his suite, he's not getting any hot water."

"I met the Face a while back," Rose mused. "Huh. So there's still plumbers?"

"Well, I certainly hope so, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Where are you from, miss, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Oh!" Rose started. "I'm not from here... I come from a long way away. A really long way. I just came along with these two people. I don't even know them that well. I hardly know them at all. What am I doing with them?"

She stood up, still lost in thought. "I guess you need to get back to your job, then. I might see you around." She walked off down the hallway.

"Thank you, miss!" called Xandra from where she was working. "Not a lot of people give me permission to talk. You're very kind."

She peered down into the dark air vent. "Now, what have we got here?"

She could hear a faint scuttling noise coming from down the passage. A red light danced randomly in the darkness, and a metal spider came through.

"Oh, hello!" Xandra exclaimed.

The spider did not reply.

"Do you want to get a spot reserved for yourself?"

The spider only scuttled closer, followed by a whole lot more of its kind.

"Oh, you brought friends!"

This was followed up by the spiders, not looking so cute anymore, dragging her into the ventilation tunnel and away. No one heard her screams.

* * *

Rose sat in the gallery, gazing over a panoramic view of the Earth. It was so very close to collapsing. Hobbes came up quietly behind her, and Rose acknowledged his presence with a single head nod.

"Hard to believe, isn't it," he mused. "Millions of years of work and innovation, and all of it has led to this-" he gestured at the sun. "-the Earth. Being destroyed."

Rose made a noise that could have been affirmative. There was silence.

"Who are you?" she suddenly burst out. Hobbes raised his eyebrows. "Who are you two?"

"We told you. I'm Hobbes, he's Calvin. We travel."

"But how come you're a tiger? And why is a six year old saving the world?"

Hobbes laughed dryly. "It's what we do, basically. It's our job, except we don't exactly get paid."

Rose took her phone out of her pocket, and fiddled around with it a bit. No signal. It wasn't as if she expected there to be one, but...

"Here," Hobbes sighed, taking a water pistol from his satchel. "Give me that for a moment."

Rose allowed him to take her phone. The tiger aimed the water gun at it. There was a puff of smoke, and it turned into a hard drive with an interface. Hobbes began typing into it. "With a bit of jiggery pokery..."

"Jiggery pokery." Rose folded her arms. "Is that some kind of technical term."

"Yup," he replied, still fiddling. "I came top of the class at jiggery pokery. What about you?"

"Nah, I failed hullabaloo."

Hobbes finished up what he was doing with the phone-turned-hard drive, and, with another flick of the water gun, turned it into a phone again. He handed it back to her. "Here. You can now call anyone in the world at any time, as long as you've got the phone number."

"Seriously?" Rose hit the speed-dial number for her mum, and listened for a moment. "Mum?"

Pause.

"No, I'm fine. Absolutely fine. Top of the world." She grinned slightly. Another pause. "I might be a bit late coming home, that's all." Pause. "Love you." She hung up. Hobbes was grinning wildly, and he raised his arms, as if to say 'how about that?'

"I just called my mum from the future," she told him, slightly shocked. "She's been dead for millions of years."

"Oh, how morbid. I give you a universal mobile, and all you can think of is how dead your mother is currently." He got up. "Well, back to the party. Apparently Calvin's discovered something he thinks we should know. Plus, I've got to return the Transmogrifier Gun before he notices."  
"You stole it?"

"I prefer the term 'liberated'."

* * *

"Hobbes! Slimy-Girl-Known-As-Rose!" Calvin ran towards them. "Guess what I just found out?"

"Oi!" protested Rose. "I'm not slimy!"

"You are," assured Calvin. "There's been a murder on board."

Rose gasped, and Hobbes's face hardened. "Who?"

"The steward."

"Cause of death?" Hobbes questioned.

"Apparently sun radiation poisoning, his sun filter was down. And look what I found in his room!"

Calvin was holding a metal spider between his thumb and forefinger. Rose snapped her fingers together a couple of times. "I've seen those before! Just out of the corner of my eye!"

"They're all over the Platform," Calvin informed her.

"So... split up?" Rose ventured.

"You read my mind. Hobbes and I will go this way, you go that way, question the guests, meet back here in 15 minutes, any more and something's gone wrong."

"Gottit." Rose gave them the big thumbs-up. Hobbes and Calvin wove their way through the crowd, and Rose decided to go to Lady Cassandra, the so-called Last Human.

* * *

"That didn't go well," Rose quickly decided, strolling away happily from Cassandra. She had, in the space of 5 minutes, insulted the lady, found out that she had had over 300 operations, none of them at all appealing, insulted her some more, called her something inappropriate for this fanfiction, and walked out.

Cassandra had given her some dirty looks from across the room, but Rose payed them no heed, and decided to find a certain boy and tiger to see if they had found anything more interesting.

"Hiya, Slimy Girl," Calvin said by way of greeting. "You'll never guess what we worked out five seconds ago."

"Do tell."  
"We found a way to make this little guy-" he shook the metal spider he was still holding. "-show us who his owners are, using the Transmogrifier Gun. Attention, everyone!" he yelled to the room. Everyone turned to look. Calvin had quite a loud voice for such a young boy. He placed the spider on the floor, and zapped it with the object that looked quite a bit like a water gun. It flickered into the image of a frog, and hopped a few steps, before changing back into a spider, and scuttling over to the Adherents of the Repeated Meme. Which were, you know, the creepy guys in black cloaks. Hobbes walked over and peered at the Adherents.  
"Calvin," he requested. "What, exactly, is a Repeated Meme?"

Calvin relayed this to his wrist watch, which whirred gently. "A repeated meme is an idea, a thought," it told him in its cool voice.

"I thought so," remarked Hobbes, ripping of the leader's cloak to reveal an empty shell. It was basically wire and a battery, hooked up to voice box. "Now, I wonder who their controller is...?"

Every single person in the room turned to look at Cassandra. She giggled. "Oh, you've figured it out, you clever boys and girls. The sun filters will go up, and this lovely, lovely space ship will be fried. I was going to use the deaths of the assembled elite to generate profit from their companies to finance my operations," she began. "but... I can still do that."

"Oh?" Hobbes waved the Transmogrifier Gun at her.

"Oh, yes." And with that, there was a loud ZAP. Cassandra, the last Human, had teleported away. Despite the fact that no teleporters were allowed.

There was a long silence.

"Well, that complicates things," grumbled Calvin. "Rose, are you coming with us?"

There was no reply.

"Rose?"

He turned on the spot, 360 degrees. Rose Tyler had disappeared.

"Seriously? You had to insult the person who is responsible for the latest plot on our lives. Of all the times... Hobbes? We have a human to rescue."

**And the duo dashed out of the room. **

* * *

**(A/N-**

**Rose Tyler. The most accident-prone companion he's ever had. There will be an update soon.**

**If you wish to ask me questions to do with the story, or just general things, please check out the link on my profile to my ask dot fm account. I check it every day, so go have a look.**

**~Kitty**


	4. Episode 2:2

**(Disclaimer: Don't transmogrify things that shouldn't exist yet, and sell them on eBay.)**

_**Episode 2:2- The End of the World**_

Rose woke in a room. A big, spacious room with not much in the way of furnishing, except for a small table at one end, and a note of lined paper, saying, 'bye, bye!' with a smiley face. She groaned. "Of all the people I had to insult..."

"Sun filter rising," interrupted a computerized voice, and her eyes widened. "Oh no."

She raced to the door, which was, predictably, locked. She banged on it for a moment, before giving up, and racing to pick up the table before the sun burnt it up. A small sliver of pure white light slid up the window, and began to creep over the floor, sizzling as it did. Rose chose not to look at it, and instead began to bang on the door with the table. All she succeeded with this was splintering the table into pieces.

"Hobbes?" she called. She could hear the pounding of furry feet on the floor, followed by someone yelling- "she's in here!"

"Rose?" Hobbes asked. "You okay?"

"I would be, if there wasn't the fact that deadly sun rays are about to burn me up?"  
"Is that so?"

The now-familiar zapping of the Transmogrifier Gun reached her ears, and the computer said, quite calmly, "Sun filter descending". And then, just as quickly, it told the room at large, "Sun filter rising".

"All taken care of, huh," Rose said sardonically.

"Working on it, working on it," Calvin told her through the door.

What followed was a ping-pong battle of "Sun filter rising" and "Sun filter descending", and Rose was becoming slightly worried that she was never going to get out of the room. Maybe she would get fried. Or maybe not.

She sat down, leaning heavily against the door- still closed- and pulled the tree sapling out of her pocket.

"Hello," she greeted it. "I'm Rose. That's a type of plant. We might be related."

"You're talking to a plant," came Calvin's muffled voice.

"Well, if you'd just hurry up..."

"We're on it," Hobbes assured her. There was a grunt, and a crash, then an electrical buzzing, followed by a loud ZAP. The sun filter stopped in the middle of a "Sun filter descending" and stayed there at halfway. Rose breathed out a sigh of relief. "What did you do?" she asked.

"We jammed the computer system," Hobbes informed her. "But we can't get you out."  
"Can't you use the Transmogrifier Gun thing?"

"Actually, you're right. We can."

There was a ZAP, and the door became a movie poster for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II. Rose examined it quickly, before brushing past it to greet Calvin and Hobbes.

"Awesome sauce," Calvin grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Now, I believe we had a talking trampoline to capture?"

CRACK.

The three of them looked up simultaneously.

"Sun filter rising," declared the computer system all over the Platform.

"Oh, that is not good..." hissed Hobbes, beginning to back away down the hallway. "The spiders must be bringing down the gravity satellites already."

"What should we do?" Rose was beginning to panic slightly.

"Reset the manual shields," Calvin told them grimly. "Computer, bring up the schematics for Platform One."

His ever-present wristwatch whirred, and a slowly rotating hologram rose from it.

"We're here," Calvin explained tersely, jabbing a finger at a red cross. "and we need to get to the engines, which are here at the green cross."

Hobbes and Rose nodded.

"Let's go," he growled, closing off the hologram.

"Yes, sir." Rose saluted.

They dashed off along the corridor, Calvin pointing out the directions to go. They paused for a moment at a large, metal bound door. Calvin zapped it with the Transmogrifier Gun, and it turned into a bunny rabbit. A really tiny one. Rose scooped it up, and placed it in her pocket, next to the sapling. And they continued on.

Soon they came into a room with pillars dotting across a large cavern. And the pillars didn't look exactly natural either. Neither did the raging lava covering the floor at the base of the pillars.

"Lava is not supposed to be on a spaceship," Calvin protested. Hobbes shrugged.

"Probably Cassandra's fault," he deduced. "But there's only one thing we can really do here."

"What?" Rose asked.

"Transmogrify," he grinned. With three quick ZAPS, Calvin and Hobbes became falcons, and Rose became a bat. They flew across the heat struck area, and when they had reached the other side, Hobbes turned them back into their original forms.

"WHY the HELL did you turn me into a BAT?" she stormed. Hobbes shrugged, and Calvin just grinned.

"We need to keep moving," he urged her. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, and growled ferally. "Okay, okay! I'm sorry! I'll get you a dress or something!"

They continued on down a long metallic hallway in complete darkness. The only source of light was at the very end of it, and it was a tiny pinprick.

"Aren't you not supposed got into the light?" Hobbes asked conversationally.

"Well, can you hear your dead ancestors calling out to you?"

"I can't even REMEMBER my ancestors."

"You should be fine."

At this point they had reached the light, which turned out to be sitting on top of a slightly raised platform. And beyond the platform was...

"Oh, damn," Rose gulped.

It was a complex array of whirring fan blades, with no discernable way through. The only thing that could possibly help them was, apparantly, a small button inset into the wall. Calvin pressed it experimentally. The fans slowed down, and stopped entirely.

"Hot dog!" he cheered, and let go of the button, making as if to go through the fan-lined area. As soon as he released the pressure, the fans began again, and he jumped back hurriedly. After a bit of experimenting, it appeared that the fans only stopped when someone was holding the button down. Which left them with a problem.

"Who's going to be the one that stays behind?" Calvin asked them all.

"Not me," Hobbes quickly declared. Calvin nodded an affirmative, and pointed at Rose.

"You, then."

"No way!" she exclaimed. Calvin pouted.

"Why not? You'll be the safest out of all of us- you won't be killed by giant fans, and you won't have to confront Cassandra."

"Oh yeah?" She pointed down the corridor. Lava was slowly but steadily creeping towards them. There was a slight moment of silence.

"Okay, maybe you will get killed, then."

"What are we going to do, you moron!" she screamed. Calvin thought for a moment.

"Give me the rabbit!" he demanded.

"What rabbit?"

"The one in your pocket!" Rose reached into her pocket and pulled out the fluffy white bundle, and handed it quickly to him. He drew the Transmogrifier Gun from his pocket and placed the bunny directly over the button, so it held it down and made the fans stop. "There's not enough power in the gun for a full molecule change, but if I change the basic structure..."

The gun ZAPped the rabbit. Its muscles stiffened, and it turned into granite.

The fans were still off.

"Go, go, go!" Hobbes urged her, and they dashed down the aisle of fans as quickly as they could, outrunning the lava by far. Rose felt a slight flicker in her vision, and for a moment they were in the desert, surrounded by creatures of nightmares, but then they were back in the bowels of Platform One, and she dismissed it as unimportant.

At the end of the corridor, a small electronic device was lying, discarded, on the ground. Calvin snatched it up, and stared at it for a moment. "Teleport," he diagnosed, and began pressing buttons. It beeped. "Hold onto my arm," he directed. Rose and Hobbes did so, and the world dissolved around them.

* * *

They staggered to their feet in a large, extravagantly decorated room.

"I wasn't entirely sure that would work," admitted Calvin sheepishly. Rose and Hobbes glared. He shook his head. "Okay, I'll make it up to you later."

Footsteps outside.

Without making a sound, they all dived for hiding places. Calvin hid himself in the gap between the couch and the metal wall, and Rose rolled under the tablecloth for the work desk. She didn't get to see where Hobbes had gone, and so assumed that he must have done a good job, because at that moment the sliding door opened, and Cassandra rolled herself in.

"Oh, you should have seen their faces," she laughed, presumably into a communications device. "The darlings never knew what hit them. None of them escaped."

Calvin stood up from behind the couch, and Rose rolled out and jumped to her feet. Cassandra paused. "Oh."

"Yes, exactly," Calvin replied.

"Wait. where's that tiger of yours?" she demanded.

"On the light," he said casually. Hobbes dropped, flailing, onto Cassandra's frame, and Rose chanced a look upwards. The light was tiny, not big enough to hold Hobbes at all.

"How does that work?" she asked. Calvin shrugged.

"TV contracts."

There was an awkward pause while everyone tried to figure that out. While everybody was distracted, Hobbes took the opportunity to grab the teleport. With a massive ZAP, they were back on Platform One. The heat was sweltering, and Cassandra gasped from the pressure of the heat waves.

"Now you know how it felt to the steward," Hobbes told her. Cassandra's thin skin was already beginning to crack from the heat.

"Moisturise me," she said in a small voice. Her skin was billowing and flexing in the heat. Calvin shook his head.

"Do something! She's going to die!" cried Rose. Calvin remained impassive.

"She should've died centuries ago. She was only delaying the inevitable."

With one last cry, Cassandra, the Last of the Humans, was gone. Her only remains were ashes that quickly blew away. Platform One was collapsing.

"Quick, to the Time Machine!" Hobbes yelled. And they were running again. Always running, reflected Rose with the hint of a smile.

* * *

"The Earth is gone," Rose realised, suddenly. They were back in the Time Machine. "The Earth is gone, and nobody saw it go. They were all..."

"Mmm," agreed Calvin, working at the console. "That's the problem with humans. We're all so busy, always wanting to be at the right place at the right time, but...more often than not, we're always late. I wish I was a tiger."

"Can't you use your Transmogrifier Gun?"

"Only works for an hour or so at a time. Besides, last time I tried it, it was slightly disappointing."

"How so?"

Calvin immediately clammed up, and Hobbes snickered. "Okay, you don't have to tell me. So, where next?"

Hobbes moved over, and hit a few buttons.

* * *

They stood in the middle of busy London, taking in the sights and smells.

"I think we all needed that," Hobbes sighed, and the other two agreed. Just the knowledge that, somewhere, sometime, Earth existed was a great comfort to them all. They walked a short distance to a park bench, and sat down. If anyone had looked over at that moment, all they would have seen was a teenage girl, and a younger boy, perhaps her brother, with a toy tiger.

"So, where do you come from?" Rose asked eventually.

"America," Calvin answered shortly. He didn't seem inclined to give any more details, and Hobbes took over.

"Our home town is trapped in a time loop," he sighed. "It's why Calvin is perpetually six. He figured it out about ten relative years ago, and we built the Time Machine so we could escape."  
"Doesn't anyone miss you?"

"No. We've got a duplicate of us back there, and besides," he gave her a pained smile. "I don't think anyone would miss us anyway."

There was a long silence between the three.

"You know what..." Rose began. "I think... I think..." She paused. "I think I need- chips!"

Her nose caught the smell of some freshly baked London chips. Calvin caught onto the thought, and jumped up. "Great idea!"  
Pause.

"...for a slimy girl."

Rose laughed and elbowed him in his ribs, standing up as well. "Come on, I can see a place. It's called..." she squinted. "...the Malo Lupo. Wonder what that means."

"No idea. I'm not Google Translate or something."

They walked off, chattering happily.

"...who's paying?"

"Not me. Dad won't give me allowance."

"Fine, you cheapskate. I will... if you'll let a slimy girl pay, that is."

"Oh, just this once, then."

* * *

**(A/N:**

**Yay! Second episode done! The Unquiet Dead is coming soon. I hope you liked the way I haven't actually followed the storyline of the original. Plus, I've done some foreshadowing. See if you can spot it.**

**~Kitty)**


	5. Episode 3:1

**(Disclaimer: It wasn't my fault we landed off target! Let's blame it on a passing salesman!)**

* * *

"And where to now?" Rose asked the two time travellers.

"Hm..." Calvin tapped the edge of the console with a finger. "Let's see... we are off to Ancient Egypt! Pharaohs... pyramids..."  
"Oooh! Can I be a princess?" Rose enthused, excited. Calvin examined her quickly.

"No. You're a slimy girl. You can be a slave."

"I hate you."

"Well, off we go, then!" Hobbes chirped. Three minutes of travelling, and they had arrived. Whether or not it was the right place remains to be seen. After a quick bounce out of the cardboard box, with Rose executing a perfect backflip, they stared around.

"...this doesn't look like Egypt," Hobbes admitted.

"No...it doesn't." Calvin grabbed a newspaper from a passing salesboy, and scanned it quickly. "Cardiff, 1869."

"A bit off target."

"Only slightly. Why don't we explore a bit?"

Hobbes nodded, and so did Rose. "We can meet back here in an hour?" she offered.

"Good idea," agreed Hobbes. "See you around."

* * *

Rose strolled along the street, looking around. Her strange clothing attracted some odd looks, but she didn't let it bother her. She was, right now, a part of history! She passed a group of salesmen that were giving her some covert looks in the corner, but she glared at them, and that was that.

"Hey," she realised, speaking softly to herself. "Isn't Charles Dickens alive right now?" She ran through the facts in her head from primary school. "Wow... I think he is. I wonder if I can see him."

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't notice the funeral taking place nearby. It was apparently for someone called Mrs Peace. Her coffin stood just in front of everyone gathered. To the side was a wealthy-looking man and a young girl who appeared to be his servant.

Rose continued down the street, and out of sight from the funeral, but something was happening. Something that, if she'd thought to investigate, would save her a lot of trouble, and possibly ruin the plot of this story. But she didn't, so this episode shall continue as planned.

The coffin of Mrs Peace was shaking slightly, but nobody really noticed it. The vicar read out a couple of lines from the Bible. The coffin shook again, and this time everyone noticed. The lid burst off, and the late Mrs Peace burst out of it, glowing bright blue.

So much for 'Peace', huh?

Everyone screamed, and began to run away madly like sensible people would if confronted by a glowing blue corpse. However, the man and his servant girl stayed where they were. They don't actually seem that sensible to me, now that I think about it.

Mrs Peace then proceeded to kill her grandson brutally. I won't go into detail here; I want to keep this fanfic rated K. She then lurched, zombie-like, out of the parlor. The man grabbed the girl by her arms and shook her roughly.

"Quick, girl, where is she going?" he yelled at her. The girl closed her eyes.

"The great man," she whimpered. "All the way from London. The great, great, man."

The man stood, grabbed her by the hand and dragged her out of the park where the service had taken place.

* * *

Rose, meanwhile, had decided to go to the place where Mr Dickens was currently performing.

Gee, this is building up the plot, isn't it?

When she reached the building, she distracted the one security-person with a rock diversion (namely, throwing a rock to make a noise in a different place) and slipped in. To her surprise, Hobbes was there too, apparently listening to whatever the famous author was doing.

"Didn't think you were a fan," she commented, sliding into the seat next to him. Hobbes shrugged.

"I find storytelling interesting," he replied. They listened in silence for a bit.

"Where's the stubborn boy?" she finally asked.

"Oh, you mean Calvin? He said there was something he needed to investigate."  
"That probably means that we'll be running for our lives soon, right?"

"Right."

That was when the glowing blue corpse of Mrs Peace burst into the room, spilling blue vapour all over the stage. Zombies do have great senses of timing, don't they? Hobbes and Rose jumped up, and moved to the stage, where the not-so-glowing corpse of Mrs Peace had collapsed. Rose poked the slumped body with a shoe.

"Dead," she reported. Hobbes nodded, and pointed off stage to a man and young girl who were running towards them.

"What's betting those people were the ones Calvin had to investigate?"

"Quite a lot, actually. You go get Calvin, I'll find out what's happening."

"Check that."

Hobbes dashed off in the opposite direction. The screaming audience had dissipated. Nobody was left in the room, except Rose, the corpse, and two people who were at that moment attempting to pick up the corpse.

Uh oh.

"What are you doing?" she asked them.

"Taking this corpse," replied the man. The girl gave her a terrified look.

"Sorry, miss," she whispered. Rose frowned.

"What are you sorry for?"

"This," said the man, and gestured to the girl. A cloth was clamped over Rose's mouth and nose, and the last thing she thought before she passed out was,_ oh, that is just so typical._

* * *

"You ruined the performance!" Charles Dickens stormed at Calvin, who attempted to give the famous author his 'oh, I'm a sweet little six-year-old face'. It didn't appear to be working, considering the evil look he was giving him. Hobbes crashed in through the door.

"Calvin, there's a glowing blue corpse-thing, and Rose is busy with some people, and-"

"Shut up, Hobbes," Calvin demanded. "I'm trying to stop Charles Dickens from murdering me."

"Charles Dickens?" Hobbes brightened visibly. "I can get you out of this one. Just repeat everything I say."

Calvin gave him a puzzled look, but nodded.

"Your stories are brilliant," Hobbes began. "Completely one hundred percent brilliant. I've read them all. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and what's the other one, the one with the ghost?"

Calvin repeated this.

"A Christmas Carol?" Charles offered. Hobbes shook his head, and Calvin mirrored him.

"The one with the trains. The Signal Man!"

Calvin copied this, and glanced outside, before doing a double take. Rose was being loaded into a hearse by a man and a young girl. He blinked. "Oh, that is just so typical."

"What?" Hobbes and Charles asked at the same time.

"Rose. Our...uh, friend. She's being kidnapped."

"Damn," Hobbes growled. "Let's get her, then. Get on my back."

Calvin compiled, and Dickens stared at the odd scene. To him, it looked as if Calvin was floating just above a stuffed tiger. Calvin produced a hammer, and hit him on the head. And now, to Charles, it looked exactly as it was- Calvin was riding a large, bipedal tiger.

"Forwards!" Calvin yelled, and they crashed out the window, Charles Dickens staring at them. He quickly regained his composure and hailed a cab. Getting into it, he yelled at the driver, "Follow that boy!"

* * *

Rose awoke in a creepy place. To expand on that thought, she woke up in a dark dungeon with barely any light.

"Hello?" she spoke into the darkness. There was no reply. Like she expected any. The single gas lamp flickered.

* * *

Outside, the man and his servant, who we can now reveal to be called Mr Sneed and Gwyneth, were conversing in hushed voices.

"She's still alive!" said Gwyneth. "What should we do?"

"I don't know! I didn't plan for this. It's not my fault that the dead won't stay as they are."

"Then who's fault is it? Why is this happening to us?"

There was a knock at the door.

"We're not here!" growled Mr Sneed, and then realised how stupid that sounded. "I mean, we're closed."

"No, you're not," came Calvin's calm voice. "What if someone dies at midnight? You guys have to always be open. It's part of your job."

There was a pause.

"Plus, there's a sign on the door that says 'Open'," he added.

"That would be a clue," admitted Gwyneth. "What do you want?"

"We want...to see your master," Calvin said. Gwyneth boggled at Hobbes. "What?"

"You...have...a...tiger..." she stammered. Hobbes clasped his hands together.

"Oooh, very good!" he cheered, and they pushed past her. The gas lights flickered, and he glanced up. "Having problems with your electricity?" he asked.

"They don't have electricity," Calvin reminded him. "They have gas."

* * *

Down in Rose's cozy little catacomb area, someone blue and glowing was stirring. This oughta be good.

"Hello?" she called again. There were two coffins leaning against the wall. One's lid shifted, and clattered to the floor. "Anyone there?"

Something moved. And glowed.

"I think I know what's coming here," she said to herself. "Glowing blue zombies."

As it turned out, she was absolutely right. Two glowing blue reanimated bodies sat up from their coffins, and began to move towards her. "Oh, isn't that just typical."

She moved to the door, and banged on it frantically. "Calvin? Hobbes? Now would be a good time?"

* * *

From upstairs, the banging carried up.

"She's down there," Hobbes realised.

* * *

"Please, LET ME OUT!" she screamed. The zombies were drawing closer. There was a ZAP, and the door turned into a miniature cow. Calvin stood there, clutching the Transmogrifier.

"BACK, BACK, YOU SLIMY...uh...ZOMBIE THINGS!" he yelled. He paused. "Oh. It's you. Can't we get through one episode without you being in mortal danger, and us having to save you?"

Rose punched him lightly in the arm. "What do you mean, episode?"

"Uh...doesn't matter."

They turned back to the problem at hand, namely, the glowing blue corpses.

"Hello," Hobbes spoke mildly. "Anything you want?"

Just then, Charles Dickens happened to burst through the door. His eyes widened.

"This must be some sort of trick," he muttered.

"No, sorry. The dead are walking. Hello again," Hobbes waved.

"I'm hallucinating," the famous author decided. Calvin cleared his throat. "Oh, sorry. Please continue."

"Right. Anything you guys want?" Calvin directed at the reanimated...body-things.

"Failing. Open the rift. We're dying. Trapped in this form. Cannot sustain. Help us."

They screamed, and then collapsed. A short silence ensued.

"Riiight," Rose said, staring at the no-longer-glowing-blue bodies. "And that wasn't completely cryptic at all. Uh huh."

"Tea, anyone?" offered Sneed.

Everyone glared.

* * *

Gwyneth poured tea into cups for everyone in the parlour. Calvin accepted his carefully, but Hobbes declined and instead opted for a glass of cold milk. Originally the older man hadn't been able to see the tiger, but a knock on the head from a hammer had fixed that.

"You drugged me," Rose listed angrily. "You kidnapped me, you stuck me in a room full of zombies, you left me to die, and, as if that weren't enough, you messed up my hair!"

"Hair products," Calvin sighed. "That's all that girls think about. Honestly."

"Shut up, you," Rose retorted, and turned back to the funeral man. "You had better tell us what's going on, sunshine."

Calvin swirled his tea around with a spoon, and sipped lightly. He pulled a face. "Too bitter. But yes, I do agree with the slimy girl over there. What's going on?" He spooned some sugar into his drink. Sneed shrugged.

"The funeral parlour's always been associated with creepy things. There's always a reputation for these sorts of businesses. But it was only about a month ago that it actually started living up to the reputation. You know, the dead moving around."

"Codswallop," Charles Dickens offered his opinion.

"You saw it yourself," Hobbes pointed out.

"Trickery, obviously."

Hobbes and Calvin shared a look that clearly said 'yeah, right'. Calvin coughed slightly, and added more sugar to his tea. "So let's go have a look around. Maybe we can find something."

"Uh-uh." Rose crossed her arms. "I'm staying right here where I won't nearly get killed by zombies. I've had enough near-death experiences for today, thank you very much."

Calvin added two more heaped teaspoons of sugar to his tea. The cup now resembled a scoop of watery brown sludge with added sand. He sipped, and sighed contentedly. "Suit yourself."

He stood up, put his cup down, and exited the room, closely followed by Hobbes, Sneed and Charles. Gwyneth and Rose opted to stay sitting and sipping tea.

* * *

"Huh," mused Calvin, searching around the room. "Whaddya know. Nothing here."

Dickens was looking at the corpses, apparently for wires or the like. Hobbes shook his head. "You won't find anything there."

"There must be some kind of mechanism in this fraud," he insisted, still examining.

Hobbes sighed. "Sorry, Charlie boy. Nothing in there, now. The creatures are made of gas. The human body is full of gas when it decomposes. What do you think happened?"

The author lay back against the wall. "So, the world's nothing like I thought then. I had it wrong the whole time."

"Wrong?" Calvin laughed. "God, no! You just didn't know everything!"

"That's basically the same thing," he pointed out, then sighed. "I've always railed against the fantasists. Oh, I loved an illusion as much as the next man, revelled in them, but that's exactly what they were, illusions. The real world is something else. I dedicated myself to that. Injustices, the great social causes. I hoped that I was a force for good. Now you tell me that the real world is a realm of spectres and jack-o'-lanterns. In which case, have I wasted my brief span here? Has it all been for nothing?"

For once, Calvin had nothing to say.

* * *

Upstairs, Rose and Gwyneth had finished up their tea. Gwyneth took the dirty cups to the sink, and Rose began to help wash them. Gwyneth waved her away, but Rose insistently continued.

"You really shouldn't do that, miss," the servant girl told her. Rose shook her head.

"I really should. Sneed works you to death. I need to help out a little at least! How much does he pay you?"

"Eight pounds," replied the girl, sounding oddly pleased.

"Eight pounds a week, or...?"

"Don't be silly! Eight pounds a year!"

There was an awkward lull in the conversation, and Rose struggled to fill it. "So... do you go to school or something?"

"I used to. Every weekend, once a week. But I don't anymore."

"Once a week!"

There was another awkward silence. Gwenyth coughed.

"So... what do you do around here for kicks?" Rose ventured. The younger girl stayed mute. "Oh, come on! There must be something you do, or someone you...someone you like!"

"Well... there is a nice boy who works at the blacksmith's. He has a lovely smile."

Rose nodded knowingly. It was almost as if the two had bonded.

...of course, at that point, Calvin predictably ruined the moment by banging open the door and banging in. Rose started, and turned around to see who it was.

"Oh," she smiled. "You're back. So what's the plan?"

There was a pause.

"You do have a plan, right?"

"Of course I do, Rose Taylor," Calvin snapped.

("The name's _Tyler,_" Rose grumbled.)

"We," he said dramatically. "Are going to hold...a _seance_..."

* * *

**(A/N:**

**Cue dramatic music. I am working very hard on this one. As you may be able to tell.**

**I'm working on some theme music for the characters, and I may post them somewhere near Episode 6, if I get that far.**

**Thank you for all the lovely follows and favorites, but you know what I actually crave?**

**REVIEWS.**

**Please review!**

**~Kitty)**


	6. Episode 3:2

**(Disclaimer: Spirit-slash-ghost-slash-zombie-things...or whatever.)**

_**Episode 3:2- The Unquiet Dead**_

* * *

Gwyneth went slightly pale. "How did you know?" she whispered quietly. Calvin shrugged.

"A mixture of things," he said. "The way you actually aren't freaked out that much by Hobbes, and Rose's clothes... the fact that you seem to know quite a bit about our little zombie problem... the whole bit where you're accepting our 21st century slang..."

"Waitwaitwait," Rose protested, holding up her hands. "What in the name of Starclan are you talking about? Is she from the future or something?"

"Warriors!" Calvin exclaimed. "Excellent series; we must have a fangirl attack later over how awesome Erin Hunter is... but no. Nothing so dramatic."

"I have the Sight," the younger girl admitted quietly.

"She can see the future," Hobbes chimed in. "Annnddd... can apparently communicate with our spirit-slash-ghost-slash-zombie-things."

Rose blinked. "And this helps us... how?"

Calvin jumped up, starting to pace the room. Charles and Sneed were staring at the oddity of their unusual conversation. They probably had no idea whatsoever what Calvin was talking about.

"Well, if our slimy girl friend here... what's your name?"

"Gwyneth."

"Gwyneth, right. Thanks. Article (1): If our slimy girl friend, Gwyneth, knows what our spirit-slash-zombies-slash-ghost-things are, and can communicate with them, it stands to reason that she can put us into contact with them, and we can find out what they want. Article (2): They obviously want something, because otherwise they wouldn't be coming to life and strangling people, and generally causing chaos. Article (3): They're zombie-slash-spirit-slash-ghost-things, but we really need to come up with a better name for them. Anyone?"

He paused for a moment.

"Right, no one has any ideas. We can sort that out later. Article (4): We need to hold the séance soon, otherwise the...the...spirit-slash-zombie-slash-ghost-things will continue causing mayhem _(we really need a better name for them)_ and although I fully endorse mayhem, killing people is kind of stepping over the line. Article (5). You're all staring at me."

Everyone was indeed staring at him. Hobbes raised a hand timidly. Calvin nodded and pointed at him.

"You're scaring me," he stated. "I have never known you to be so... so... _logical_."

Rose nodded in agreement, and Gwyneth made a hasty noise of agreement. Calvin rolled his eyes.

"Maybe I'm just growing up?" he offered.

Rose and Hobbes shook their heads.

"Taking charge?"

They shook their heads again.

"This is a rare flash of inspiration for me?"

"Maybe," Hobbes conceded. "Right. Séance?"

"Yes. Downstairs."

Everyone groaned as one.

"The zombie room?" Rose complained.

"Of course! Where else would we summon zombies but the zombie room! Come along, Tyler!"

And he dashed off downstairs. Everyone glanced at each other. Hobbes shrugged and followed. Rose copied Hobbes, dragging Gwyneth by the arm. Dickens and Sneed had a silent, furious conversation involving lots of head shaking and mouthing, but they seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, and they headed downstairs with the rest of the group.

* * *

They were seated cross-legged on the floor- two girls, a tiger, and a spiky haired boy. Anyone watching might have thought that they were playing a children's game, not summoning zombie-slash-ghost-slash-spirit-things via a girl who could see the future. Read that again, and think of it out of context. Imagine how confused a new watcher of this show would be if they jumped in right here. Now stop thinking about things like that and get back to reading. Thank you.

"So," Hobbes ventured. "How do we go about summoning spirit-slash-ghost-slash-zombie-things?"

"They are called the Gelth," Gwyneth whispered. Calvin started, and glared pointedly at her.

"Why didn't you tell us that before?" he demanded not-so-quietly. "We didn't need to go through the whole process of calling them zombie-slash-gh-"

He was cut off abruptly by the swirls of glowing blue vapour that began to swirl about the room. Gwyneth stood and held her arms out horizontally, and spun around. "They are coming," she hummed. Calvin clapped his hands together in pure delight. "Actual ghosts!" he cried. "Oh my Starclan, I am _SO _happy! Never in my travels have I seen ghosts! I sound stupid!"

"They are called the Gelth," Gwyneth repeated, and the vapours increased. "Oh!" she gasped.

Whispering surrounded them. Dickens glanced around, looking spooked.

"What are they saying?" Rose wondered. Hobbes cocked his head to one side, and his ears pricked up.

"They're saying they can't get through. Gwyneth! They aren't controlling you, you're controlling them! Open the rift!"

She hummed in agreement, and raised her hands. The blue vapour around them started to group together and solidify into distinct shapes.

"This is so cool!" cheered Calvin. Rose wasn't so sure. Two shapes spiralled through the air and settled themselves behind Gwyneth. They started to speak with innocent cute little girl voices. That should have been a clue from the start. Anything that sounds like a little kid is automatically creepy. Ever heard of the movie _Child's Play_? Well, neither have I.

Back to the story.

"_Pity the Gelth,_" said the Gelth. "_Pity the Gelth._"

"Okay, we pity you," asserted Hobbes. "What do ya want?"

"_The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Time is running out so quickly. Pity the Gelth._"

Rose crossed her arms. "Well, why should we? Pity you, I mean. And what do you want with Gwyneth?"

"_Once, like you, we had a physical form. And then...the War came._"

"What war?" Calvin asked curiously.

"_The War of Wars. You, Time Lord, should know that above all others._"

Calvin strode across the room to a solid war and promptly began banging his head against it.

"I," he yelled between boinks. "am," BOINK. "not," BOINK "a," BOINK "freaking," BOINK "Time," BOINK "Lord!" He stopped slamming his head against the wall. "Why does everyone think that? _It was a stupid joke between Hobbes and me!_"

He turned to the Gelth and crossed his arms tightly across his chest. "I am extremely tempted to just not let you through the rift, out of spite."

"_Our bodies wasted away. We're trapped in this gaseous state,_" the gaseous beings continued, unfazed.

"And that's why you want the bodies," completed Hobbes, nodding. "You want to see the sunlight again."

"_Yes. Pity the Gelth. Your dead bodies are going to waste. Lend them to us. Pity the Gelth."_

"Shut up," Calvin snapped.

"It's not right," agreed Rose. "Shouldn't we just let the dead stay…well, dead?"

"They just want to see the light again," disagreed Hobbes.

"_Pity the Gelth._"

"You're not helping."

The Gelth swirled about the room, and fed themselves back into the gas lamps. Gwyneth collapsed onto the floor.

"It's all true," muttered Dickens.

* * *

Later, Gwyneth was laid out on the couch in the living room. Rose carried a glass of water over to her. Calvin and Hobbes were in deep discussion in the corner, while Charles seemed to be in slight shock. Gwyneth's eyelids fluttered. "Miss?"

"Shush," Rose said. "Drink this." She held the glass of water to the younger girl's lips, and she drank greedily.

"My angels," she said weakly. "Did you see them? They came for me."

"Quiet!" Rose hissed. "You really shouldn't be caught up in this type of thing."  
"Yes, she should," Hobbes insisted from across the room.

"No, she shouldn't," insisted Calvin. And they were back to arguing again. Gwyneth eyed them curiously.

"Does this always happen with them?" she wondered. Rose nodded.

"From what I can tell, yes."

"Hm."

There was silence, broken by the soft arguing in the corner, occasionally punctuated by an exclamation or yell.

"You can see the future?" Rose ventured.

"Yes, miss. I've always had the Sight. Ever since I was a child."

"Can you see my future, then?" she whispered, throwing furtive glances towards the two arguing time travellers in the corner.

"...potatoes!" yelled Calvin. Rose, personally had no idea what he was talking about and had no wish to actually know in the first place.

"I could," she admitted. "If you'd like, Miss."

"I would." Rose felt extremely guilty for some reason, as if it was something she really shouldn't do, but was going to do anyway for the thrill of rebellion.

The younger girl closed her eyes, and began humming a strange tune that sounded sort of like a hymn, but a bit more ethereal.

"I see..." she hummed. "You're from London. I've seen London in drawings, but never like that. All those people rushing about half naked, for shame. And the noise, and the metal boxes racing past, and the birds in the sky, no, they're metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People are flying. And you, you've flown so far. Further than anyone. The things you've seen. The darkness, the big bad wolf!" She gasped, and sat upright. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, miss. So sorry."

"It's...all right," muttered Rose, not quite sure what she was apologising for.

"Ugh!" yelled Calvin from the corner. "Fine, have it your way, you big furry fleaball! But I reserve the right to say _I told you so!_"

"Fine!" Hobbes yelled right back.

"Fine!"

"AAAUGH!" he screamed, and stormed over to Rose and Gwyneth in frustration. "We're doing it," he growled, and jerked his hand over his shoulder to where Hobbes was standing, paws crossed over his shoulders. "I know, I know," he said, cutting off Rose, who was about to speak. "I don't like it any more than you do. But we are outvoted. Hobbes, Gwyneth, and the Gelth are all in favor, and only us are against them."

"Zombies count in votes, now, do they?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow. Calvin chuckled dryly, and called Mr Sneed over.

"Where's the largest concentration of ghosts?" he asked him. "I mean, where have they been seen the most."

"That... would be the morgue," the undertaker told him.

"Seriously?" Rose yelled, throwing her hands up in the air. "Couldn't it be in the, I don't know, gazebo or something?"

"That would ruin the dramatic tension of the episode," Calvin informed her.

"Wait, whaddya mean, episode?"

"Nevermind."

* * *

The morgue was, well, morgue-like. Very gloomy, a lot like the cellar. A Gelth emerged from a gas pipe, and swirled its way to stand underneath an arch.

"_Pity the Gelth,_" it said. Calvin slammed a fist into the wall.

"I AM SO SICK OF THEM SAYING THAT!" he yelled.

"_There is so little time._"

Rose raised a hand. "Uh, Calvin? Can I just point out that I know for a fact the Gelth don't succeed. Otherwise, there'd be corpses walking around in my time. And there weren't."

"Time can be rewritten," Hobbes informed her. "It's always moving; changing."

"_Stand beneath the arch,_" the things-previously-known-as-zombie-things instructed. Gwyneth obeyed.

"This is a bad idea," Rose warned.

"Of course it isn't," Hobbes shot back.

"Of course it is," Calvin agreed with Rose.

"_Establish the Bridge,_" the Gelth hummed. "_Reach through the Void. Let us through._"

"They're coming," sighed Gwyneth. "They're coming."

"_It is begun. The Bridge is made._"

And that was when everything began to go pear-shaped.

Gwyneth opened her mouth, and blue gas came out of it. The Gelth hovering behind her faded from blue into an angry flame red and grew large teeth. It no longer looked so sweet or innocent.

"_We are coming. The Gelth will come through in force._"

"I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN, YOU STUPID FLEABAG!" Calvin screamed. "Sure, they claim they only need a few bodies, but when they actually come out, they need-"

"_A few billion._"

The dead bodies around them rose to their feet, and began to move towards them. Rose, Calvin, Hobbes, and Sneed backed up against the wall.

Charles Dickens took the opportunity to dash out of the room.

"Get back here, girl!" Sneed demanded. "Stop dabbling in witchcraft!" He attempted to move closer to Gwyneth, but a Gelph (I do believe that is the singular term) moved forwards and snapped his neck with the movements of an entity that had done it many times before. Sneed's dead body glowed red and sat up.

"_I have joined the legions of the Gelth_," he hissed. "_There are three more bodies for us to take. Take them. Take them._"

"I take the opportunity to tell you, 'I told you so'," Calvin growled, hustling Rose and Hobbes towards the door, which was conveniently locked. He pulled out the Transmogrifier Gun, and aimed it. It crackled, but nothing happened. "They deadlocked it!"

"_Give yourselves to glory. Sacrifice yourselves for the Gelth._"

Hobbes growled, the primal noise rumbling deep in his throat. "I trusted you. And you..."

"You'll never take this world while we're alive," Calvin seethed.

"_Then live no more_."

"Seriously?" Rose wondered. "Isn't that, like, more than slightly cliched?" The Gelth drew closer, and she gulped. "I'm not alive yet, so it isn't it impossible for me to die?"

Calvin said nothing, and Hobbes reviewed her with sad eyes.

"Tell me it's impossible for me to die. Please."

"I'm sorry," Hobbes said.

* * *

Outside, Dickens was being chased by a glowing red Gelph down the street. Suddenly, without warning, it began to choke. As much as a gaseously-based creature can choke, that is.

"Atmosphere not sufficient," it gasped, and dived into the nearest street lamp. Dickens's eyes widened.

"The gas!"

* * *

"But it's the 1800s. How can I die now?" Rose asked.

"Is this really the time for this discussion? We're about to be murdered by red zombies," Calvin yelled. "And I think I have more of a right to be annoyed than you do. I've seen so much more than you have. I made the Tower of Pisa lean, I accidently married Vlad the Impaler, and here I am. About to die in a dungeon."

He paused, and then added, somewhat sourly.

"...in _Cardiff_."

Rose took a breath. "Let's go down fighting, then." She felt for Calvin's small hand, and Hobbes's furry paw, and squeezed them. "Together."

"Together," they echoed, and closed their eyes, waiting for their inevitable demise.

As it turned out, their demise wasn't that inevitable after all, because, at that moment, a certain famous author came running in.

"Turn up the GAS!" he yelled. "Turn off the flame, turn up the gas!"

He turned to the gas controls, and began flicking all the switches up to high. Calvin's eyes widened.

"Brilliant! Gas!"

"Oh, so we're going to choke to death instead. Wonderful," Hobbes put in sarcastically.

"No!" Calvin disagreed. "The Gelth are gaseous creatures. If they're sucked into the gas, and we light it with fire..."  
"Boom!" realised Rose.

They all set to work, ripping gas pipes off the walls and filling the room with gas. Rose coughed, and realised that it was getting hard to breathe.

"Calvin..." she choked. He noticed, and motioned to Charles.  
"Get her out," he ordered. "Now."

"No!" she protested. "I'm not leaving Gwyneth."

"You have to. You're choking to death," Hobbes informed her.

"No...!"

She sank to the floor, coughing heavily. Charles grabbed her by the upper arms, and dragged her out. Hobbes turned to Calvin. "What now?"

By way of response, he Transmogrified two gas masks for them. Hobbes accepted his.

"Now," he said, voice muffled by the mask. "Now, we get the other slimy girl out of here."

They moved towards Gwyneth, who was still standing in the middle of the arch.

"They aren't angels," Hobbes yelled to her. "You need to get out of here."

She gave them a sad smile. "I can't."

Calvin felt for a pulse, and suddenly realised. "You're dead. You were dead the moment you stood in the arch."

"Yes. I cannot help you anymore, except for one last thing." Gwyneth removed a box of matches from her apron pocket, and held them up.

"I'm sorry," Hobbes said. "Thank you."

The two of them, the boy and the tiger, dashed out of the room together, just as Gwyneth removed a match from her pocket and lit it.

The room went up in a massive ball of fire.

* * *

They made it outside just as the shop exploded. Calvin and Hobbes went flying across the street, and Calvin collided directly with Rose. She caught him around the waist, and noticed.

"She's not with you."

"She's dead," he said, removing the mask. "I'm sorry. She was from the moment she stood in the arch."

"She saved the world," Rose realised. "A servant girl. And no one will ever know."

* * *

Half an hour later, the four of them, a girl, a boy, a man, and a tiger, they were all standing in front of the Time Machine.

"Well, goodbye, Charlie Boy," Hobbes grinned, waving. "It was lovely to meet you, but we must be going. Things to see, you know."

"Yes, me too," he agreed, nodding. "I am taking a coach back to London, and then I may finish off the Mystery of Edwin Drood. It lacks a proper ending, you know."

"Hm," Calvin had a pensive look on his face. "You could put something about glowing blue spirits in it, you know."

"Yes!" the writer exclaimed. "I can retitle it 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the Glowing Blue Apparitions!'"

"Catchy title," Rose remarked, covering up a smirk.

"Yes, I think so too," he agreed.

"Bye, then." Calvin waved, and entered the box, his spiky hair disappearing from view.

"Bye," Hobbes said as well, and shook Charles's hand vigorously. He entered the box as well. Rose turned to him, grinning.

"I guess this is goodbye," she said, and kissed his cheek before shaking his hand. He shook his head in slight disbelief.

"What odd customs you have."

Rose laughed, and turned to go, but was stopped by his voice again.

"One last thing, Miss Rose. You have such knowledge of future times, so please tell me this. My books. Do they last?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, they do last. They last forever."

And she entered the box too.

* * *

Rose dismounted the trampoline and joined Calvin and Hobbes by the console. "He was so nice," she said.

"Yeah, I guess so," agreed Calvin. "But don't you think it may change the timeline if he writes about blue ghosts?"

Hobbes gave him a sad look. "Charles Dickens dies next year. He won't have a chance to publish 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood'."

Rose covered her mouth. "Oh no. That's horrible. He was so nice."

Calvin shrugged. "It's just life. Or death, I guess. And do you really want to try to change it, after what we've just seen?"

"I guess not," Rose admitted reluctantly. "But can't we give him one last surprise?"

"What did you have in mind?"

Rose told him. He grinned.

* * *

Outside, Charles Dickens waited for the two children and the tiger to come out from their odd cardboard box, and go home. After five minutes, he became slightly concerned. What exactly were they doing in there?

Just as he moved to look, the box rose up into the air, and began to hover. It swooped around his head a couple of times, and spiralled up into the air, before disappearing into a rip in the air. He laughed in amazement and delight, and began to walk away.

Somewhere, a choir was singing 'Hark, the Angels Sing'. It was Christmas Eve, and the snow was just beginning to fall.

"Merry Christmas, sir!" called a boy who was selling newspapers on the side of the road.

"Merry Christmas to you too!" he called back. "God bless us, everyone!"

* * *

**(A/N: I decided the remove the interlude, after much deliberation. Might post them somewhere else...anyway. Aliens of London will be up next week, and it'll be very different. I hope. See you then.**

**REVIEWS ARE LOVE. SHARE THE LOVE.**

**~Kitty)**


	7. Episode 4:1

**(A/N: Girls. Can't live with them, my hard drive has lost its pink pen.)**

_**Episode 4:1- Aliens of London**_

RING-RING. RING-RING.

"Hello?!" Calvin yelled down the line. "Oh, hey, Hobbes. Yes."

Pause.  
"No."

Pause.

"Maybe."

Another pause.

"Seriously! I'm working on the Time Machine! How bad can it be?"

Long, long pause.  
"No, that was a rhetorical question. Of course it's that bad, with the slimy girl with you. Seriously. How accident prone can you get?"

Pause.

"..that was another rhetorical question. Where are you?"

Yet another pause.

"Of course. You're at 10 Downing Street," he said sarcastically. "How could I be so stupid? Just what have you gotten yourself into this time?"

* * *

12 HOURS EARLIER...

"Go on," Calvin said, pushing Rose towards the trampoline. "Off you go. Go meet up with your mum and dad. I landed us 12 hours after we left."

"Fine! Fine! Just don't leave without me!" she protested.

Calvin rolled his eyes. "Of course I won't. I'm working on the Time Machine for a bit, it'll take me about 24 hours. Perfect timing, right?"

"Right," she snapped. "And by the way, my dad's dead."

And with that stinging retort, she stalked to the trampoline and bounced out. Calvin huffed a big sigh, and turned to the console to begin tinkering. "Girls!" he complained dramatically. "Can't live with 'em."

"..but wouldn't want to live without them," Hobbes completed.

"Yeah, that's right," Calvin nodded, then turned around sharply. "Wait, WHAT?"

"I said, my drive has lost its pink pen," he said, deadpan.

"That's alright, then," Calvin agreed, and connected a circuit. It sparked angrily, and zapped him with a bolt of electricity. "Hey!"

More sparks and another zap from the interior of the Time Machine. Calvin growled angrily, and shoved a screwdriver into the mass of wires. A small explosion occurred. Calvin raised himself out of the smoking remains of an expensive-looking device, and screamed wordlessly towards the ceiling. When he had calmed down slightly, he jabbed the screwdriver which was hanging loosely from his hand towards Hobbes. "You. Out. Now. Follow Rose, eat tuna, I don't care. Just leave me alone."

Hobbes raised a paw in his direction. "Uh... Calvin? Are you... okay?"

"GET OUT!"

Ten seconds of needless violence later, Hobbes was sitting on his bruised rump on the pavement outside the Time Machine.

"Yowch," he said, rubbing his rear. "Calvin?"

A scream and a puff of smoke.

"I'll be back at five, okay?"

A hammer flew out from the Time Machine, landing dangerously close to Hobbes's tail.

"Okay, I get the message. See you later."

_growwwwllll... _came from the Time Machine. But Hobbes didn't hear, because he was already walking off.

A newspaper fluttered to the ground in front of the tiger, and he picked it up absently, reading the date. His eyes widened, and he dropped the newspaper, running as fast as he could towards the Powell Estates.

* * *

"I'm home!" called Rose, strolling in the front door. "I was just out with Shareen. Sorry I'm a bit late home, I just lost track of time. How are ya?"

Jackie Tyler, who had been sitting on the couch with a cup of tea, dropped the mug. It shattered on the floor, shards flying everywhere. Her expression was one of absolute shock with a bit of incredulity mixed in.

"What?" demanded Rose. "I've come in late before, it's never bothered you."

"Yeah... but... but... but, not this late."

"What do you mean!" she exclaimed, and her eyes fell on the dining room table.

There were five different types of 'Missing Person' posters there.

Oops.

Just then, Hobbes crashed in through the door. "It wasn't 12 hours!" he yelled. "12 months. Sorry. I'll kill Calvin as soon as we get back to the Time Machine, really."

"I'll help," Rose agreed, staring at the posters.

"Rose!" Jackie exploded. "Where have you been?! And where did that stuffed tiger come from? And why are you talking to it? And why am I the one asking all the questions? Oh, forget it! I'm calling the police." She grabbed a phone and dialed.

"No, Mum!" Rose protested. "Honestly, I can explain."

"No buts," she lectured. "We're talking to the police."

"Seriously," Rose mumbled. "Where's Calvin when you need him?" Jackie's astute ears picked this up quickly.

"Who's this Calvin person, then?" she demanded.

"No one... no one! He's just the person I'm travelling with!"

"He's in the Time Machine," Hobbes said, taking no notice of the seething mother next to him, probably reassured by the fact that she couldn't hear him.

"Oh!" continued Jackie. "So you've been travelling, hm, missy? Because I don't recall ever seeing your passport leave the spot where you left it. And you've been travelling with a boy!"

"And a tiger," Rose muttered, throwing a glance at Hobbes.

"Huh! Get rid of that ratty old thing, already!" Jackie huffed, grabbing Hobbes by the tail- it looked extremely odd- and throwing him out the window. Rose heard a startled yelp from the garden.

"Stop that!" she yelled. "Look, Mum, I can't talk to you about this. I called you, remember?"

"Yes. Yes, I do remember. I remember you giving me one cryptic phone call, two days after you left. And then nothing. Where were you? Where did you go?"

Rose blinked at her, almost in tears, before turning and bolting out the door.

* * *

Rose climbed the escapeway that ran up along the side of the building. It was a pastime she had developed as a child. Whenever life had felt a little too much, she would climb up to the roof, and just sit there, thinking or reading a book. She mounted the side, and clambered to the top of the building. It was a windy afternoon, the breeze sweeping bits of rubbish around the flat-topped roof. She stepped over to the edge and sat down, letting her legs swing out over nothing. The estate lay sprawled below her.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Hobbes. He had padded silently up behind and sat down just next to her. Rose sighed.

"Ah... just... nothing really."

There was a companionable silence for a few moments, and then-

"It's just- I can't tell her anything! I can't tell my own mother where I've been for the last three days, and she thinks it was a whole year! No, she's right. It was a whole year."

Hobbes shrugged. "The disadvantages of being a time traveller," he remarked wisely. "Your head starts to hurt."

Rose chuckled. "Heh. But still. It's like, I've seen all these things, right? And now I can't go back. I'm probably one of the only people on Earth who know that aliens actually exist. And I can't tell anyone. No one else knows anything about this, and they probably never will."

A loud screeching noise from above made them both look up.

A large, disc-shaped space ship was pivoting wildly through the sky, weaving this way and that. Twin streams of black smoke sprayed out from its rear end. Rose's and Hobbes's eyes followed it as it flew into an inelegant barrel roll, spun twice, and crashed directly into Big Ben, blowing a massive hole through the center of the big clock.

They stared at the scene for a moment, before Rose found her voice.

"_Seriously?_" she groaned. "That just had to happen, right?"

Hobbes laughed in delight. "Oh, you _bet _it did! Come on, let's go!"

"More running?" Rose got up.

"Almost certainly, yeah."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Hobbes produced the Transmogrifier Gun from behind his ear, and zapped a loose candy wrapper with it. It turned into what looked like a hovercar.

"It's a hovercar," he explained. The small grey vehicle was just a platform with a long stick running up from the center. It wasn't bigger than a meter squared. Rose hopped on, and Hobbes gripped the pole, maneuvering it forwards. The hovercar shot forwards and off the building, and into the afternoon sky.

"But won't people notice a hovercar?" Rose asked, peering down at London, spread out below them like a map.

"Yup."

They flew over some rooftops, and a few children pointed and stared at them from windows.

"Then...?"

"There's already a crashed spaceship in the smoking remains of Big Ben. Seriously. Is some futuristic technology going to make much difference."

Rose considered that, and nodded, before grabbing the control stick from Hobbes.

"I can do a better job than you at this, you know," she informed him. He raised an eyebrow.

"Wanna put that to the test?"

Hobbes grabbed the stick back and guided them towards an empty rooftop, where he landed. He grabbed a loose tile from the roof, and transformed it into an identical hovercar, except for one fact. It was light pink. Rose squealed in delight, and ran over to it, revving the control stick twice. She turned to her tiger friend.

"Oh, you are _so _going down."

Hobbes laughed, and they took off, rising into the air in synchronisation. Rose flew low, darting through alleyways, and only rising up when she approached pedestrian areas. Hobbes, on the other hand, prefered to stay up as highly as humanly (or felinely) possible. He reached out a claw, and snagged a bird mid-flight, before plucking a few feathers off and letting it continue unharmed, albeit slightly dazed. The two hovercrafters met up half a kilometer away from their destination, and started flying side-by-side, each competing to be there first. Hobbes put on a burst of speed, and Rose decided to do the stupidest thing she had ever done.

She flew up next to Hobbes, and jumped from her craft to his. In mid air.

Hobbes shook his head, amused, and jumped to Rose's pink vehicle, quickly saving it from the mystery spaceship's fate, namely, crashing into Big Ben.

They both touched down in front of a huge crowd that had already gathered.

"I win," declared Rose, jumping off Hobbes's hovercar.

"No way!" Hobbes protested. "I _so _beat you!"

"But you won using my hovercar, so technically I did win!"

"Girls," Hobbes grumbled, zapping the two 'cars back to their original form. A candy wrapper and a brick shingle fell to the ground with a scratch and a thump, respectively.

Hobbes and Rose then noticed the crowd that was staring at them.

"Oh, he-llo!" cried Hobbes, then noticed that no one could see him, except for the kids. He nudged Rose, who smiled and waved.

"Uh, hi. I'm... uh... Annabeth Chase? I represent the Department of Extremely Odd Stuff, and... I'm investigating. Investigating the investigation with my investigative powers. Yes. So, if you could, sort of, move aside?"

She motioned with her hand. Everyone shuffled out of the way.

"Thanks. Let's go."

She and Hobbes started across the path that people had cleared for them. They had got to about two meters away from the giant smoking wreck when they were stopped.

By the military, no less.

* * *

Five minutes later, they were walking home, having deemed the hovercars too risky at this point in time.

"Well, that went well," complained Rose.

"Seriously. You though 'Annabeth Chase' would work? And, 'The Department of Extremely Odd Stuff'? Honestly."

"Well, it's better than 'The Ministry of Silly Walks'. Why don't we have some kind of identity giving paper, like... I dunno, psychic paper, or something?"

Hobbes looked at her strangely. "Where did you get that from?"

Rose shrugged. "It just came to me. What do we do now?"

Hobbes tapped his chin with a claw. "The obvious thing. We watch it on the television."

"_Big Ben has been destroyed. Police have been drafted in from across the country to help with the impending panic._"

Rose reached up to the remote, and switched it off. "Nothing we don't know. Honestly. You'd think the news people would be more efficient."

"Nah, not gonna happen. It's like asking for a non-corrupt politician."

Rose grinned, tongue poking out from the corner of her teeth. "What now?"

Hobbes shrugged and yawned, stretching his paws out, and knocking the remote off the top of the television, where it had been placed. It clattered to the floor. The TV turned on.

"_-body has been found, of non-terrestrial origins. A retrieval squad is being sent in..._"

Hobbes and Rose stared at each other, then to the TV screen.

"What in the..." Hobbes said softly.

People were filing into the Tyler's living room, and Rose couldn't successfully communicate with Hobbes without looking like some kind of weirdo. Not that she was, of course. It was quickly turning into some sort of 'Welcome Home, Rose!' party. People kept coming up to her and asking where she had been. But of course she couldn't tell them.

"My life is so complicated!" she screamed mentally. "It's like some insane fanfiction author took a popular TV show and crossed it messily with a comic strip, getting rid of main characters when necessary and making fun of key elements. And they did it badly, and they're not getting the reviews they think they deserve."

Followed by-

"Where did that come from?"

"_Mystery still surrounds the whereabouts of the Prime Minister. He hasn't been seen since the crisis started, and- oh, hold on a moment. There's Joseph Green, MP for Hartley Dale. He's Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for the monitoring of sugar content in exported confectionary._"

There was a pause.

"_With respect, he's not really that important right now. Sorry, Joe."_

Rose sighed, and headed out to the balcony, where less people were located. Hobbes was out there, leaning on the railing.

"Where did you get to?" she asked him.

"Your mother threw me out the window again. I spent a good fifteen minutes getting up, and another ten trying to keep out of her sight."

"Uh," Rose looked slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, I guess. Mum's a bit of a neat freak." She quickly changed the subject. "So. About the space ship. What should we do?"

Hobbs rubbed his left ear. "Well, I don't really think it's that important."

"What!" she demanded. "How can an alien invasion not be important!"

"That's the thing. I don't actually think it's an invasion. I think- no, I'm 99% _sure _that this is humanity's first contact with alien life. We can't really meddle with something like that. That was an actual crash landing, a complete accident. It wasn't intentional."

Rose crossed her arms. "So what, we just stay here and wait it out?"

"No," he corrected her. "_You _stay here and wait it out. I'm going to go find Calvin to see if he's over his temper tantrum, and then... we might do something. I don't know."

"Huh." They gazed out over the Powell Estates together. "Promise you won't disappear?" Rose asked abruptly. Hobbes looked scandalized.

"Of course we wouldn't do that!"

Rose looked unconvinced.

"Okay, maybe Calvin would. But I'd stop him. Here."

He tossed her a small red button set on a metal backing. It had a hole in the top so you could loop a string through it. Rose caught it and examined it. "What is it?"

"It's a Time Machine key. Thing. Sorta like the garage car door opener. If you press the button, and the Time Machine's around, the doors unlock or lock. If the Machine's not around, it sends out a signal so we can get you. Cool, huh?"

"Very cool." Rose tucked it into her jacket pocket. "I guess I'll see you later."

"You will," he promised, and leapt off the balcony with a cry of 'Geronimo!' In midair, he sprouted wings, which were probably a product of the Transmogrifier Gun, and flapped off.

Rose watched him go. Unnoticed, Mickey (remember him? He's Rose's boyfriend. Or ex. I don't know. It's complex, and I'm only 12. I don't even have a boyfriend yet. *starts crying* Oops. I'm off topic again. Sorry, back to the story.) was watching the tiger fly off. But he could only see a stuffed tiger levitating through the air.

"What in the world?" he muttered. Something was going on.

* * *

Hobbes, as a matter of fact, did not go towards the Time Machine, like Rose expected him to. He valued his life, health and sanity too much than to encounter Calvin when he was in such a bad mood. Instead, he transformed himself into an invisible flying penguin and headed towards Number 10, Downing Street.

This oughta be good.

He flew in through a window, which just happened to be in a hallway where an interesting argument was taking place.

"Let me in!" demanded a woman whose name tag declared her to be 'Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North'.

"I'm sorry, no," replied the Junior Secretary. There was an awkward pause.

"Damn, that didn't work," growled Harriet. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Thank you," the Secretary said, taking the cup she held and sipping it contentedly. "Hey!"

Harriet Jones had ducked in through the door when he wasn't looking, and shut the door behind her. No one was there, or at least that's what she thought. An invisible Hobbes, in the form of a penguin, was there too.

Harriet Jones walked over to a red box, handily labelled Red Box. She placed a sheaf of papers inside it, before noticing a file marked 'Emergency Protocols' inside it. She frowned, and took it out. Hobbes crept up behind her, holding his breath. Harriet began reading, and Hobbes read the file too.

There was loud thumping from outside. Hobbes jumped, but Harriet didn't notice anything. She just flipped a page over, and continued to scan the text. Hobbes dashed over to the door, and flung it open. He ran down the hallway, in the direction of the thumping.

Harriet didn't notice a thing.

Hobbes sped down the hallways, heading towards the Cold Chambers. He zapped himself with the Transmogrifier Gun, turning himself into a non-invisible, non-flying tiger. A regiment of soldiers was marching down the corridor, and he dashed behind a pillar.

"Emergency defence plan delta!" the tiger screamed, and continued on towards the noises. The soldiers all glanced at each other, shrugged, and decided to follow the orders given from seemingly nowhere.

Hobbes reached the cool room the thumping was coming from just as the freezer burst open and something came out. It was...

"A pig?" the scientist standing nearby screamed.

Indeed it was. It was a pig in a spacesuit. Hobbes sidled up to the scientist and rapped her on the back of the head with his ever-present rubbed mallet. She started, and stared at him.

"Yes, yes, I'm a tiger, get over it already," he said, waving his hand. "Back to the crisis at hand. Was this alive when you put it in the freezer?"

"N-no."

"Great. Just perfectly peachy."

The pig squealed, and ducked behind a filing cabinet. Hobbes crept up to it on all fours, purring softly. "Hm. Are you an alien menace? No. Of course you're not."

The door was smashed in, and a troop of soldiers stormed the place. They were all carrying guns. Hobbes sucked in a deep breath. "Don't shoot!"

Of course, the soldiers couldn't hear him. To them, he was just a stuffed tiger toy. So they shot. And they didn't miss.

* * *

**(A/N: Welcome back to the world of Calvin Who, which is what I'm calling this series now. Thanks for all the positive feedback, and please, please, please review, and tell me what bits you liked! I need ideas, and I'm asking YOU!**

**Extra special thanks to GoldenKeyblade, who gave me ideas for if I get to Season 8. Not likely, but I appreciate the notion.**

**THERE WILL NOT BE AN UPDATE NEXT WEEK, due to me having school camp, but the week after that I'll be right back in action.**

**Also: I need info. Where can I find some other good Calvin and Hobbes/Doctor Who crossovers not on this site? **

**Lotsa Luv,**

**~Kitty Eden)**


	8. Episode 4:2

_**Episode 4:2- Aliens of London**_

* * *

Now, I know what you're thinking right now. _Ohemgee! One of our main protagonists is dead, and the other two heroes weren't around to see it or stop it! Who's going to save the world now?_

Well, that, or something to that effect. I am sorry/pleased/whatever to tell you, however, that Hobbes is not, in fact dead, and someone did receive a minor injury. I will reveal that fact to you now to prove I am not, in fact, into the dramatic tension of narrative in the least. I will conceal the fact of who has a minor injury, mainly because it doesn't have any impact on the plot whatsoever.

What you've just witnessed here today, ladies and gents, is called **misdirection**. Misdirection is a technique that involves the placement of one event/device/thing in one place that distracts the reader/viewer/watcher from seeing what really is happening. This device is used a lot nowadays, mainly in stage magic, politics, films, and the Oprah Winfrey Network. Has this technique of misdirecting been used on you recently? Probably. Definitely, because it just was in the previous episode. Are you offended? Probably. Definitely. Do I care? Probably not. Definitely not. So if you have a complaint, feel free to find the largest, bumpiest, most spiky log you can get, write your complaint on it using blood from the back of your head, and ram it down your throat. Now see if I actually care. Thank you.

Back to the narrative.

When the strike force of assault soldiers burst into the freezer room, and locked and loaded their guns, the spacepig thing was creeping out from behind the filing cabinet as Hobbes was creeping towards _it_. Hobbes was attempting to coax it into the open air, and was situated directly behind it, at least, relative to the door. So when the soldiers burst in, and Hobbes yelled "Don't shoot!", and they shot anyway because they couldn't see him, and he was basically a stuffed tiger to them... all he had to do was duck. And he did, with great aplomb. Hobbes was unharmed, except for a minor injury to the tip of his tail, which had been sticking upright and bristling with fright.

(...dammit. I revealed the nature of the minor injury, even though I told myself I wouldn't. Grr.)

The mutant space pig, which, (poor thing) was quite confused, wasn't that lucky. It squealed twice as it was shot in the heart, before dying. Hobbes stared in horror, and scrambled to the dead creature's side. Without looking up, he fired the Transmogrifier Gun twice in the air; once, to jam up everyone's guns, and twice to give everyone the Transmogrification equivalent of a bang on the head with a rubber hammer. All the soldiers started, as they noticed that the stuffed tiger that had been sitting next to the cabinet wasn't quite so stuffed anymore.

"It was innocent," growled the tiger. It didn't look that cuddly. The military force took a collective step back.

* * *

Back in the room where Harriet Jones was reading secret documents she probably shouldn't have been reading (GOD I LOVE THIS WOMAN), she heard footsteps. This time, she looked up.

Go figure.

She hastily packed away the files, and placed them back into the Red Box, before glancing around for a place to hide. The people were getting closer, and indistinct voices could be heard. Her eyes swept the room once; twice, before catching onto a closet. With seconds to spare, she swung herself into it, and shut the door firmly.

"This is possibly the greatest crisis in human history, and you have not done a single thing to avert it!" someone was saying. "This is an outrage, sir!"  
"I quite agree," said another person. "It's an outrage that someone as mindblowingly stupid as you could be in office still."

The noise of someone spluttering in outrage. "Sir!"

"I do like this job, don't you?" a woman's voice said.

"Yes, it is a total blast," the second man agreed. A fart rang out. "Oh, I'm so sorry." He didn't sound that sorry. "I believe-" Fart. "-I'm the acting Prime Minister now?" Fart.

"Where's the rest of the cabinet!" the bureaucratic-sounding person demanded.

"I sent them away," the woman said calmly. She farted. "We do have a lot to deal with, now."

"Specifically, you," the man said. Harriet inched closer to the tiny crack of light from the door and peeked through it.

The bureaucrat growled. "I am relieving you from your command as of Rule 17, Law 234b1, Section a1, Subsection 87, Sub-subsection 9, Sub-sub-subsection 01, Article 76"

"That's a lot of words for such a small man," the woman purred, sounding as if she was checking her nails for scratching. "I mean, this is quite a hair raising business."

"Quite!" agreed the man she was with. "I mean, look at us right now!"

Harriet inched closer to the door. The woman, who was the elaborately manicured sort, gripped her hair and pulled upwards. Her head came off. The man did the same.

The room glowed green, as the bureaucrat screamed in terror.

* * *

"What do ya mean, you lied?" Rose growled at Hobbes, who shrunk back a bit.

"It was for the Greater Good?" he tried. Rose snorted.

"Dumbledore tried that one, and look how _that _turned out."

"Oooh, Harry Potter," grinned the tiger, becoming momentarily distracted. "Wait, how come you know Book 7? It hasn't come out yet in your timeline!"

"It was in your library, and DON'T CHANGE THE SUBJECT!"

"We have a library?"

Rose slammed a fist into the cushion behind her, and bounced up and down in irritation. "Stupid cat. Honestly."

"Well, you might want to know what I know."

"What do you know that I want to know?"

"Are you sure that you want to know what I know you want to know?"

"Yeah, I'm completely sure that I want to know what you think you know what I want to know you know."

There was a pause. "You know, I don't know. I completely lost track of that," Rose admitted. "Just tell me."

"The alien was a fake!" Hobbes declared triumphantly.

"That means I was right!" Rose realised.

"Ye- wait, no. That's not that point at all."

"A pencil?" the human girl wondered.

"What?"

"Never mind. Do you mean the fact that someone must have crashed the spaceship for a reason?"

Hobbes sighed in relief that she was finally getting it. "Yep. And it's not human, because of the fact that the ship is way too advanced."

"So..."

"We go investigate."

"But how?" Rose stood up, and began to pace. "Calvin's still in his tantrum mode, I bet, and the hovercars are probably illegal in seven different countries-"

"Solar systems," Hobbes corrected.

"Wha- never mind. So what do we do?"

The tiger stood up as well. "We do what we do best. Improvise."

There was a ring at the door. Rose peeked out the window. "Was this part of your plan?"

"Depends who it is," Hobbes said, peeking out too. His eyes widened. "No- er, yes. It definitely was my plan. That's right."

"Suuurrre," Rose said sarcastically. "A team of soldiers was definitely part of your plan."

"Hey, don't knock it. It worked."

"Let's go see what they want first, hmm?"

Rose strode over to the door, and threw it open. "Hello!" she chirruped, waving wildly at the organised team of soldiers, waiting outside. "Would you like a cup of tea? And some Jammie Dodgers, maybe?"

A slight look of surprise passed between the soldiers, before one cleared his throat, and stepped forwards. "We're here to escort you, and the... tiger to Number 10, Downing Street."

"Any reason why?" Rose leant against the door frame, and arched her eyebrows.

"We've heard rumours that you two are alien experts, and we'd like your opinion on... matters."

"Hm. Well, I wouldn't say that about me, but I suppose Hobbes is. So..." She threw the door open wider, and grabbed Hobbes by the arm. "Away we go!"

The tiger let out a startled hiss of surprise, as they were escorted into a car and driven away.

* * *

A few kilometers, and bumps on the head with a rubber mallet later, they were extremely close to their destination. Hobbes and Rose were passing the time by talking, as their escorts seemed quite moody and not that inclined to speak.

"Any reason the rubber mallet is needed to make people...see you?" Rose asked. They had just finished their fangirl/boy/tiger discussion on Harry Potter, and were running out of material. (Hobbed was a steadfast Harry/Luna shipper, while Rose was leaning more towards Harry/Hermione. Both of them agreed that Harry/Ginny was not meant to be.)

Hobbes tilted his furry head to one side. "Well... you may have noticed that children can generally see me without prompting. Calvin thinks that this is because they have better imaginations."

"Stubborn boy," Rose snorted. "Did he come up with that all by himself."

"I may have helped a bit. Anyway, adults need a knock on the head to set their brains in order."

"That... that actually makes a lot of sense."

Pause.

"Isn't rubber plastic?" Rose asked suddenly. Hobbes scratched his head.

"...yeah, I think it is. Why?"

"Well, do Calvin's shoes have rubber soles?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. A lot of people have rubber-soled shoes, though."

"So why didn't the Nestene Consciousness just take control of the plastic in everyone's shoes and, I don't know, trip them off a cliff or strangle them or something?"

Hobbes's eyes grew a bit wide.

"Wow."

"So, yes, then?"

"Wow."

"If you're going to respond, that would be good."

"Wow."

Rose waved her hand in front of her friend's eyes.

"Wow. Rose, you've just proven yourself to have more logic than a highly advanced alien organism that's over three thousand years old."

Rose's eyes bugged out, and then she sighed. "Wizards. Not an ounce of logic."

Hobbes laughed appreciatively at the reference, as the car pulled to a stop outside 10 Downing Street.

"Mr Hobbes?" asked a man in a grey business suit. Hobbes puffed out his chest slightly at being called 'Mr'. "Would you like to be taken to our panel of experts, with..." he looked around. "We were expecting a 'Mr Calvin' as well."

"Hey!" exclaimed Rose indignantly. "Who do you think I am, Hazel Levesque? I'm just as good as that stubborn boy is!"

"I'm sure you are, Miss... Tyler. But this is a place for the experts, not a young lady like yourself. My subordinate, Ms Jones here can escort you to the tearoom if you want."

He stepped aside to reveal another woman who looked just as disgruntled as Rose felt right then. "Harriet Jones," she grumpily introduced herself. "Come on."

Hobbes shot Rose an apologetic look as they followed their respective guides. As soon as Rose and Harriet had left the earshot of anyone nearby, Harriet whirled around to face Rose.

"That friend of yours. The tiger. He knows about this sort of alien stuff, right?"

"He does. And I suppose I sort of know too. Why?"

To Rose's utter shock, Harriet started to cry.

* * *

Over in the conference room, Hobbes was attempting to convince the combined forces of UNIT, the British Military, and some other groups he had never even heard of that the alien ship was just a diversion.

"But don't you see?" he insisted. "The spaceship's technology is centuries too advanced for Earth, and the genetic engineering is literally out of this world. Not metaphorically, literally. Also," he flipped through a few briefing papers that had been laid out for him. "-a week or so ago, the technology department was due to investigate a radioactive spot in this very building. And what happened? This! Big crash landing, big diversion, it was meant for something. The question is, what. What don't these mysterious its want us to not know?"

"They turned the body into a suit!" sobbed Harriet. "A shell for the... the... the thing inside! Do you believe me?"

"Yes, yes, of course I do," said Rose. "I've seen some weirder things before," she added with a wince, thinking of the flesh-colored trampoline that was Cassandra. "So, it's an alien with some seriously impressive technology. What do we do?"

"Find it," suggested Harriet. Rose snapped her fingers, and began to search the room.

"Shouldn't take too long to-" She opened a cupboard, and the empty shell of Tony Blair fell out. "-find," she finished in a small voice. "Oh god."

"Meep," added a secretary who had just walked in. The manicured lady that Harriet had seen pulling off her head was leaning against the wall.

"Oh dear!" she chuckled, letting out a long, loud fart. "Has _someone _been poking in their abnormally long nose in where it shouldn't belong?"

* * *

Back at the Tyler flat, more trouble was metaphorically brewing.

"She was talking to a tiger about spaceships and aliens!" Jackie Tyler told a police officer. "And about a cardboard box that's bigger on the inside or something."

"Hm," went the officer. "This does sound like trouble. You see, that tiger is a wanted suspect. And anyone associated with him is trouble."

"Oh, not you too," Jackie groaned. "Get out, please."

"No! No! No!" exclaimed the officer. "You see, trouble... is my job. I find trouble, and eliminate it."

* * *

Meanwhile, Hobbes was finishing up his rousing speech.

"There's only one reason they'd want to crashland an alien spaceship, and cause panic all over Britain, and possibly the world. Two reasons actually, I stand corrected. One, to draw attention away from something, and two, to get all of the alien experts of the world right here. Here in this room."

Everyone's attention was drawn by a slow clapping coming from a specific person.

"Would you like to add anything, Mr Green?" asked a member of UNIT.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Congratulations, Mr Hobbes. You have figured out what the rest of these dunderheads could not."

He farted. "Unfortunately, you won't be around to enjoy your little victory, as you'll be too busy explaining to Saint John why you've been suddenly electrocuted to death. Have a nice life!"

He paused, and farted. "Or should I say, have a nice death?"

He pulled his head off, flooding the room with green light. At the same time, the manicured woman did the same thing, and the police officer at the Tyler flat removed his head too.

Three bulbous green aliens with three long green fingers emerged. The Mr Green alien pressed a button. Three long beeps sounded.

"Thank you for wearing your name tags. They'll help us identify the bodies!"

Via the name tags almost everyone in the room was wearing, electrical shocks were emitted. Everyone but one collapsed to the ground.

"We are the Slitheen!" shrieked the manicured woman. "And we are unstoppable!"

* * *

**(A/N-**

**Coming up next- Aliens of London.**

**My brother and I have a blog, check it out. Link on profile.**

**~Lotsa Love,**

**Kitty)**


	9. Episode 5:1

_**Episode 5:1- World War Three**_

_Previously on _Calvin Who_..._

_[Mr Green] pulled his head off, flooding the room with green light. At the same time, the manicured woman did the same thing, and the police officer at the Tyler flat removed his head too._

_Three bulbous green aliens with three long green fingers emerged. The Mr Green alien pressed a button. Three long beeps sounded._

"_Thank you for wearing your name tags. They'll help us identify the bodies!"_

_Via the name tags almost everyone in the room was wearing, electrical shocks were emitted. Everyone but one collapsed to the ground._

"_We are the Slitheen!" shrieked the manicured woman. "And we are unstoppable!"_

* * *

"Yeah, about that," tutted Hobbes, standing up suddenly. "It's a bit of a pity that I'm a tiger, and therefore couldn't pin a name tag onto myself, huh?" He stooped to the floor. "It's also," he continued. "a bit of a pity that you happened to leave some rubber gloves lying around!" So saying, he slipped on a pair of gloves, scooped up a name tag, and pressed it to the rubbery, mucus-colored skin of the Slitheen. It screamed and collapsed. Hobbes took the opportunity to run out of the room. "ROSE!" he yelled.

"In here!" came a faint call. Hobbes turned a sharp left, and found a door where thumping was coming from behind.  
"Back, you slimy alien thing!" yelled a woman's voice. Another crash. Hobbes tore open the door to reveal a very odd scene.

Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, stood on a wooden table with a chair leg held aloft, hitting wildly at another Slitheen. Rose stood nearby with two other chair legs, wielding them like dual katana. The other chair leg (plus the body of the poor dismantled chair) was held slackly by a man in a business suit that stood gaping rather uselessly at the scene. Hobbes paused.

"Uh, actually, you have it mostly under control," he admitted.

"No, we don't!" screeched Rose, hitting out wildly. "Do something! Use the Transmog-thingie!"

"Transmogrifier Gun, and no, I can't! Out of charge!"

"Great! Just bloody brilliant!" Rose dealt the monstrous alien a sharp rap on the head.

"Gimmie that!" Hobbes snatched the table leg from the man in the business suit, and jabbed at part of what I assume was the Slitheen neck. It's hard to tell with all that blubber, you know. The Slitheen roared, and staggered back a few paces.

"Run!" yelled Hobbes. Rose and Harriet did as he suggested, and dashed out of the room.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a phrase that I will hopefully never use again. Just to clarify, 'meanwhile, back at the ranch' means, in this case, 'meanwhile, back at Jackie Tyler's house'. And now, meanwhile, back at Jackie Tyler's house, the Slitheen was approaching. The only reason she wasn't committed to a ghastly and terrible (with squishiness involved) fate was the fact that Mickey Smith happened to come in at that very moment.

"Jackie!" he yelled, slightly panicked, and grabbed the first item that came to hand. Which was, predictably, a big heavy blanket that was situated on top of the couch.

Okay, so, short freeze frame here for a bit of info.

Did you know that you can get concussed from having a blanket land on your head? There can also be internal bleeding if you're unlucky enough. Or, in Mickey's case, lucky.

Mickey Smith was not an anatomy expert, so he didn't know any of this. In this example, he simply... got lucky.

Which has nothing to do with the song by Daft Punk.

He somehow managed to knock the Slitheen out with no prior training, grab Jackie, and slip out the door. Oh, and he managed to take a picture of it on his mobile phone. Why, I don't know. It might make sense to the plot later, I'm not sure.

* * *

Rose crashed out the front doors of 10 Downing Street. "Aliens!" she yelled. "Aliens just killed the alien experts and the Prime Minister."

People turned to look at her for a moment, shrugged, and turned back again. Rose growled. The police arrived.

"Aliens," Rose said shortly, pointing inside. "Inside the meeting room. Real aliens."

They followed her. "Brilliant," she muttered.

When they all actually followed her into the room, they were confronted by the sight of roughly a score of dead people. Rose paused.

"Ooh," she admitted. "This doesn't look exactly good on my behalf, does it."

A pause.

"RUN!" she yelled to no one in particular and dashed out of the room.

* * *

Meanwhile, Hobbes had pulled a phone out of nowhere, and was dialing the Time Machine, desperately hoping that Calvin had snapped out of his temper tantrum by then.

"Calvin!" he yelled into the phone.

"_Oh, hey, Hobbes_."

"Have you snapped out of your temper tantrum yet?"

"_Yes. No. Maybe._"

"Calvin, Rose and I need you here right now! There's big bad trouble, involving farts and slimy things."

"_Seriously! I'm working on the Time Machine! How bad can it be?_"

"Well, a group of aliens that call themselves the 'Slitheen' have invaded the British government, killed and impersonated the Prime Minister, killed the world's top alien experts in the space of one minute, and are chasing Rose down the hallways."

There was a yell from downstairs.

"Scratch that. The _police _are chasing Rose down the hallways. And the aliens are right behind me, so I'm going to go hide in a cupboard for the moment being."  
"_No, that was a rhetorical question_," said Calvin as Hobbes threw open a closet door and ducked inside. "_Of course it's that bad, with the slimy girl with you. Seriously. How accident prone can you get?_"

"Pretty accident prone. In the last few adventures, she's spent most of the time being kidnapped and/or attacked by aliens."

"_..that was another rhetorical question. Where are you?_"

"10 Downing Street," Hobbes said as casually as he could.

"_Of course. You're at 10 Downing Street. How could I be so stupid? Just what have you gotten yourself into this time?_"

"Just pointing out, this is kind of normal for us. If you wouldn't mind landing in the first closet on the right hand side of the staircase of the third floor?"

"_No problem. Just coming across now._"

An immense swirling of air, and a rip in reality signified the arrival of the big brown box that was their transport. Calvin sprung up from the middle of it, grinning wildly.

"Hello, fellow chaos makers!" he cheered, then peered around the cupboard that was actually quite dark. "Wait. You're the only one here. Where's the slimy girl?"

"Getting chased by a), the British police, b), the aliens, c), all of the above."

"Knowing her, probably 'c'."

"Right, them, shall we form a council of war?"

"We shall." Calvin clasped Hobbes's paw firmly, and made a complex gesture that seemed to be some kind of handshake. They then bounded into the Time Machine. "War Mode," Calvin directed at the roof. The room shook, and furniture folded back into the walls, leaving a table with two hard hats on it sitting in the centre of the room. Two duo scooped up a hat each, and placed them reverently on their heads.

"Plan?" Hobbes asked.

"Dash in screaming and hope something works."

"Great plan."

"I think so."

With that settled, the room reverted to its normal mode, and Calvin dashed off down the narrow hallway that led from the control room. Soon after, he reappeared, riding a red wagon with big wheels and a black handle.

"Oh my gosh!" Hobbes gasped. Calvin grinned proudly.

"Yep. I figured if I could make a time-and-space machine work, I could fix the wagon."

"But..." Hobbes ran his fingers along the varnished paint of the main body. "It smashed into pieces when we were on Sneer Hill!"

"And I travelled back in time to pick up the pieces before they fell into the ravine. What do you take me for, an idiot? If I have a time machine, I'm going to find all the loopholes I can and use them as much as possible."

"We've got the wagon back!" Hobbes yelled in ecstasy. "But how do we get it out of the Time Machine?"

"Garage Mode!"

Part of the main control room opened up, and it appeared that it led to the outside via one of the cardboard flaps.

"All aboard," said Calvin, wiggling his eyebrows. Hobbes jumped in behind him.

"Do we need the turbo?"

"Nope."

A sound suspiciously like an engine revving bounced through the endless corridors of the Time Machine, and with a loud _zoom_ Calvin and Hobbes raced out of the closet, screaming as loud as they could.

Behind them, the cardboard flaps of the Time Machine closed.

"_Spaceman Spiff rockets courageously throughout the cosmos!_" Calvin narrated, dodging back and forth between obstacles. "_He has but one thought in his mind- to find the alien invaders known as the Slitheen and rescue another alien organism known as only a Girr-ulgh from them!"_

"Turn left!" yelled Hobbes, clinging on for dear life. Calvin turned left.

"_Ahead, our hero sees a steep cliff face looming in front of him! Its rocky architecture is too dangerous for Spiff to navigate! IS THIS THE END?_"

Hobbes grabbed the handle from his friend and steered the wagon over to the banister of the spiral staircase, which Calvin had seen in his mind as a cliff. With pinpoint-perfect timing, the wagon leapt up onto the banister, and began to pinwheel down. As they hit the ground, a large shudder shook the frame of the wagon, but it didn't break, and instead kept going at rocket speed.

"_No! With the help of his trusty assistant, our hero manages to find a rift in the dangerous straits of this odd planet called...Britain... he continues for the Girr-ulgh, who is up ahead!_"

* * *

Rose was running from c), all of the above, when she heard loud screaming and crashes that could only be from one person. Two people, in fact. One human and one tiger, if you want to get specific.

"Turn left! Turn left!"

"_Spaceman Spiff blasts through the air!_"

"TABLE! Look out!"

A smash, and a door adjacent to her burst open with force.

"_The Girr-ulgh has been found!_" yelled Calvin- er, Spaceman Spiff, who was wearing a hard hat and clutching on to the handle of a little red wagon.

"Hi, Rose!" Hobbes screamed. "Care for a lift?"

The wagon collided with her, and she was thrown into the back of it. Although the wagon was tiny on the outside, it seemed to fit all of them without it getting too cramped.

"Smooth," Rose commented. Calvin drove the wagon towards a wheelchair-access ramp and flew straight over the heads of the police. He burst into the meeting room where the dead bodies of the people who had been killed by the electrical blast were situated. Hobbes slapped Calvin hard in the face.

"_Spaceman Spiff is under attack!_"

"Hey!" Rose complained. "Don't I get a turn?"

"Be my guest."

Rose slapped Calvin as hard as she could. He appeared dazed for a second, then shook his head to clear it.

"Okay. Okay, I'm back. I'm not speaking in italics anymore. Whew. Haven't done that for a while."

"Done what?" Rose asked curiously.

"Slipped into fantasy world," Hobbes supplied. "This time, he was Spaceman Spiff."

"Right," Rose said, not actually getting it at all. "So, what do we do next, spaceman?" This was directed at Calvin, who shook his head.

"Oh, no, nonononono. Don't call me that. It's going to be a full three seasons until someone will call me 'spaceman' genuinely, and you aren't the one that calls me that. Now shut up. I'm thinking."

There was a beat.

"Barricade the door!" yelled Calvin suddenly. "The police and aliens are coming! Quick, get the Transmogrifier Gun!"

Hobbes had a shifty look on his face. "Uh... it might be slightly out of charge."

"Really." Calvin folded his arms across his stripy shirt. "What could you possibly have done to it to make it run out of charge?"

"Um. Broke open several doors, made two highly-advanced hovercars, turned myself into an invisible flying penguin, stopped several people from killing me, and... made... myself...a cup... of coffee?"

"Coffee? You're a tiger! Tigers don't need coffee!" Calvin stormed. "Now what're we supposed to block the door up with?"

"...furniture?" suggested Rose, who had been doing precisely that for the last few minutes while the tiger and boy were arguing. The door was now blocked in with tables, chairs, and heavy items that won't be named at the moment.

"Good job, slimy girl," said Calvin grudgingly.

"Brilliant!" Hobbes enthused. "And now we can use Calvin's watch to find out what these 'Slitheen' are."

They all gathered around in a corner. "Computer," Calvin said grandly. "Tell us all you can about the alien species known as the Slitheen."

"Do you really have to speak so formally?" Hobbes asked him.

"No. It just makes me sound cool."

"Like a bow tie?" Rose wondered. Calvin and Hobbes stopped and stared.

There was a long, long silence.

"...what's so cool about bow ties?" Hobbes asked.

Rose shrugged. "I don't know. I guess it just sounds right. You know, bow ties are cool."

"NO THEY AREN'T," Calvin decided loudly. "BOW TIES ARE NOT COOL."

Meanwhile, the computer on the wristwatch had been making puzzled beeping noises, and had come up with a question mark on the screen.

"Slitheen not found," said the pleasant female voice. "Please check piranha and try again."

"Piranha?" Hobbes wondered.

"The bleep of the square cosine equivalent variable is not available in elephants at this time. To rectify your problem, stand firmly on your head and twitch your right big toe up and down to the tune of 'Pokerface'." At this point, the computer began playing the symphony orchestra version of Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way'. Calvin hummed along absently. Rose dug an elbow into his ribs, and he stopped abruptly.

"What's the matter with it?" she demanded. Calvin shook his wrist up and down. The computer hummed a bit, stopped playing Lady Gaga, and began to project, holographically, the Lord of the Rings, backwards at high speed.

"Well, the computer on this thing is connected to the computer onboard the Time Machine, and since I haven't fixed that yet, it must still be malfunctioning."

"What do we do now?" asked Hobbes. None of them had an answer. The wristwatch continued playing the movie, displaying the bit where the Ring levitates from the volcano and into Frodo's hand, before he starts walking backwards down Mount Doom. "Shut that up, will you?"

Calvin pressed a button on the side.

"Cynthia, you don't love me anymore!" the computer squawked, before shutting down with a pleasant _beep_.

_Please go outside and whistle at koi to recharge,_ said the screen. Calvin sighed, and shook it again.

_Go please whistle recharge koi at to and outside, _it said instead, which wasn't much of an improvement.

"It's useless," declared Rose. "To actually find out what those things are, and what they're doing, we need to sneak out and spy on them."

"We've still got the wagon," Hobbes pointed out. It creaked as if in recognition of that fact, before the handle fell over from its upright position, which wasn't all that reassuring. Rose glanced warily at it.

"It'll be fine," Calvin assured them. "I upgraded it a bit while I was fixing it."

"Upgraded?" Hobbes asked suspiciously. Calvin rolled his eyes about a bit.

"Uh... think Hagrid's motorcycle in Deathly Hallows crossed with the _Argo II_."

"Oh. Um, I might just wait this one out..." Hobbes backed away from the wagon. Calvin grinned.

"Get in, you big sissy!"

Rose and Calvin bundled the tiger into the little red wagon and squeezed in behind and in front of him, respectively. Calvin twisted the handle, and a sound like a race car revving came from underneath the vehicle. Rose peered under it, but there was no sign of anything like an exhaust pipe.

"All hands inside the vehicle, ladies and tigers," Calvin announced. "Flight 012FD is ready for clearance."

"'FD'?" Rose asked, holding Hobbes back from jumping out of the wagon.

"'Flow Dab'."

"Where did that come from?"

"Someone graffitied it on the handle of the wagon," Calvin said, pointing. "Wonder what it means?"

"What does this button do?" Rose asked, reaching along to tap a big red button engraved into the inside edge of the wagon. Calvin's eyes widened, and Hobbes curled up into a ball at the bottom of the vehicle. And every little boy and girl knows what the big red button usually does...

"No, don't-" Calvin began, but was cut off by a loud blast of air and sound that occurred as the back of the wagon spat out blue flames, and managed to break the sound barrier in the space of three seconds. Rose's scream was forced back into her throat, and the wagon blasted through the thin wall beside the barricade, proving that the door isn't always the place you should focus on when blocking a room off.

"BANZAI!" yelled Calvin, whooping a bit in glee. "_Stupendous Man zooms across the sky in his Stupendous Mobile, looking for crimes to fight, and good deeds to do-_"

"Calvin, shut UP!" screamed Hobbes and Rose in perfect unison. They smashed their way through another depressingly thin wall that led them to where Harriet Jones (MP for Flydale North) was listening at a wall.

"Shh!" she hissed at them. "I'm listening at this wall."

Calvin hit a green button, and the wagon abruptly stopped moving forwards at rocket speed. In fact, it stopped altogether, and all three passengers fell out.  
"Gahh..." Calvin gasped. "Did someone get the number of that mutant hippopotamus?"

"BW1254," supplied Rose, flopping her arms wildly.

Hobbes recovered first, and sat up, pressing his ear to the wall (that was extremely thin, actually). His feline eyes widened. "Ooh, now this is interesting."

"What?" asked Rose, moving next to him. Hobbes looked at her with wide eyes.

"Raxacoricofallapatorians."

* * *

**(A/N:**

**Welcome back to the world of Calvin Who, which is what I'm calling this 'show'!**

**Thank you to A Drama Queen, for beta-ing, and showing me that I'm not actually as smart as I think I am. And this time, there are not just one, but _two _Bad Wolf references. Find them, and spot the references.**

**I will be back next week with dramatic action!  
~Kitty)**


	10. Episode 5:2

_**Episode 5:2- World War 3**_

* * *

"I'm sorry, _what_?" asked Rose.

"Raxacoricofallapatorians," confirmed Hobbes.

"Raxa- what?"

"Raxacoricofallapatorians."

"Say it again, sorry?"

"Raxacoricofallapatorians," repeated the tiger, getting slightly annoyed.

"I didn't get that."

"Raxacoricofallapatorians."

"And what exactly are..."  
"Raxacoricofallapatorians? They're aliens. From the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"And that clears everything up. Sure." Rose shook her head to clear it. "So... what about these Slitheen things, then?"

"Slitheens are Raxacoricofallapatorians."

"Huh?"  
Calvin had finally recovered as well, and scrambled over to take part in the conversation. "So, it's two names for the same thing, then? Let's go with the easier name."

Hobbes listened again for a moment. "Uh... no. As far as I can tell, the Slitheen is a family name, like Tyler, or Potter, or whatever Calvin's last name is. So, they have a ridiculously long first name, and then... Slitheen."

"What's their plan, then?" Harriet had been listening to this whole byplay and now felt a bit obliged to get in on the action. The other three stared at her. "What?" she asked, a bit self-consciously. "Whenever aliens attack on TV, they always have some sort of plan. What's the point of infiltrating the British government and misleading the police if you don't have some sort of plan?"

A long pause.

"I think you've been watching too many sci-fi programmes," Hobbes confided. He pressed his sensitive feline ear to the wall again, and paused. "But, yeah, you're right. They're planning to..."

"...mine this planet for its resources and sell the scrapped place to the highest bidder," finished the female Slitheen, who had been standing, watching this without any of them noticing. They all turned around.

"Oh, hi," said Calvin after a beat. "This is Rose Tyler, my friend Hobbes, sorry, I don't know this person's name...?"

"Harriet," supplied Harriet.

"Harriet, thanks. And I'm Calvin. How do you do?"

"Calvin who?" asked the Slitheen, or, as she could be called, Raxacoricofallapatorian. But that's a bit bulky, so we'll just stick with Slitheen until the narrative finds something better.

"Just Calvin, thanks. I used to have a last name, but Susie fed me one of her doll's fairy cakes and I vomited so hard that my last name came out of me and soaked into the sidewalk. And you are?"  
"Margaret was the human I inhabited, so I suppose you could call me that," said the slimy thing that shall henceforth be called 'Margaret'.

"I don't suppose you'll tell us what you're planning, and give us a quick, hero-like way to stop you?" asked Rose hopefully.

"Not a chance," 'Margaret' growled. She raised her voice. "I found them! They're over here!"

"Into the wagon!" yelled Hobbes, jumping in first. Rose and Harriet followed, but Calvin stood his ground.

"You slimy Rackicoracopalafattofries! _You shall never defeat the likes of Spaceman Spiff..!_"

"Someone slap him!" yelled Hobbes. Rose obliged. Calvin yelped in pain as he was dragged into the wagon by the scruff of his shirt.

"Hit the antigrav button!"

"There's an _antigrav button?!_"

Calvin slammed his fist down on a button that was an odd mix of pink and purple, and not in a way that makes a nice shade of brown, either. Let's call it Urple, for fun. A loud screeching noise, similar to the sound your mother might make when you run her beloved cat over with a cement mixer, echoed about the room, and the wagon leapt into the air, and stayed there in exactly the same way a bowling ball doesn't. And the narrator drowned in similes.

"How do you steer this thing in mid-air?" Rose screeched, clutching onto the sides of the wagon for dear life. Calvin shrugged.

"I don't know. This is the first time I've used this feature."

Rose turned to him, her mouth a perfect 'O'. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME-"

The rest of that sentence was drowned out in an explosion of color, noise, and sound as the wagon ploughed through the roof.

"-WORRY, I HAVE A FORCE FIELD!" Calvin screamed, jabbing at a button that looked like another shade of Urple, even more disgusting than the last. A shimmering, translucent bubble that looked way too fragile to keep back the bits of plaster and brick that were currently thundering down on them. Fortunately, as I may have pointed out before, the walls (and ceilings) were thin.

"We're on the roof!" exclaimed Harriet. They were indeed on the roof, leaving a crashed-up hole of furniture and debris tunnelling several floor below them. If someone (or something) could jump high enough, they would have a direct way up to where our four heroes were currently camped out. Fortunately, Raxacoricofallapatorians can't jump very high at all. They kinda just...squelch. So, for the moment, our little quartet of heroes are safe.

"Right," Calvin declared, sitting down on a loose piece of shingles. "What did you hear?"

"Well," Hobbes began. "as our... for lack of a better word, 'friend' Margaret told us back there-"

("What about 'enemy'?" Rose suggested.)

"-they're planning to mine Earth for its resources and sell the empty husk off to the highest intergalactic bidder."

"There are _aliens_ who'd want to buy a shrivelled planet?" asked Harriet, disgusted.

"Unfortunately, yeah."

"Question," Rose said, raising her index finger. "How do they get into the bodies? And how did they drain them in the first place?"

Hobbes pulled a face. "Well, they basically just suck their victim dry, and use a compressor thing to squeeze themselves in."

"Like a vampire?" Calvin wanted to know.

"Well... if vampires suck out your internal organs and bones as well as blood, yeah. And since the Slitheen are really quite big, and the bodies of humans are really quite small, the compression is uncomfortable, and they let out a lot of gas. Hence, the farting."

Calvin giggled a bit in the corner. Rose glared at him. She wasn't really in the mood for inappropriate humor while the world was going to be destroyed, and told him as much.

"Hey, I'm a six year old American kid," he defended himself. "I don't need appropriate humor."

"Right," sighed Hobbes. "The question is, how do we get rid of them?"

"Blow them up!" shrieked Calvin.

"This is the same person who saved the world from shop dummies?" muttered Rose.  
"No, he does have a point," admitted Hobbes. "Blowing this place up would be the best course of action."

"You're planning to blow up 10 Downing Street?" yelled Rose. "Are you insane?"

Calvin glanced at her.

"Okay, yes, you are insane, I knew that already, but..." She struggled for words, then gave up. "How are you gonna do it?"

"Well... shoot a missile at it?" Harriet suggested. Everyone turned to stare at her. "What? It's the best idea anyone's had so far."

"How do we shoot a missile at it?" Hobbes posed.

"This is turning into a game of 20 Questions," Rose grumbled. Calvin coughed into his hand.  
"I have a way," he said.

"Ooh! Is it bigger than a breadbox?" Rose asked excitedly.

"What? Yes. I guess."

"Animal, vegetable, mineral, or other?":

"Other. Will you just stop this?"

"I'm the one asking the questions here!"

"Shush! Due to a long series of events about a year ago that ended up with me being married to Vlad the Impaler-"

("No, seriously," Rose said. "That's the second time you've mentioned that. What happened?")

"-I'll tell you later. The point is, the long, convoluted series of events somehow ended up with me having the key codes to the UK's military defense force. You can see what we can do with that, right?"

Hobbes's jaw dropped. "Wait, how long have you had these codes?"

"Like I said, for about a year."

"Then why on Earth haven't you used them to blow up someone you hate, when something goes wrong? And why, for that matter, haven't you sent a missile careening into the Pentagon, just for kicks?"

"I have excellent self-control?" Calvin tried. Hobbes began to laugh. "Okay, okay, I need good Wifi connection. And there isn't any sort of internet at our house back home."

"But that means we can't shoot a missile," said Rose reasonably. "There's not any sort of internet connection around here."

Unfortunately, she was right. They were sitting ducks, just up there on the roof. I never really understood that phrase, 'sitting ducks'. Ducks aren't the only creatures that sit. A feeling of gloom and despair fell over the group.

And Rose's phone rang.

It was a cheery rendition of _You Make My Pants Wanna Get Up and Dance_, and seemed drastically out of place in the setting.

"...Rose?" Hobbes asked eventually.

"Yes?"

"Who do you know that would call you during an emergency?"

Pause.

"...my boyfriend."

Rose scrambled around in her pocket, and pulled out the mobile phone that Hobbes had upgraded all those episodes ago, and answered it. "Mickey!"

* * *

"Rose!" Mickey yelled from in the car where he and Jackie Tyler currently were. "We just got attacked by a-"

"_-vicious alien with a habit of farting, right?_"

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"_I got attacked by one too._"

"Don't be sarcastic! It really did happen! Look, I'll send you a photo."

He pressed a few keys on his phone, and there was a reassuring _beep _as the image went across. A pause from the other end.

"_You didn't need to take a selfie, you know_," snorted a boy's voice.

"_Calvin!_" Rose scolded. "_That's mean._"

"_Yup, that's a Slitheen,_" said another male.

"Is that Rose?" Jackie demanded. "Let me talk to her!" She snatched the phone from Mickey's grip, and pressed 'speakerphone'. "Rose?"

"_No, I am not Rose,_" said the male voice that had identified the alien. "_I'm her sarcastic talking tiger friend, Hobbes. How do you do?_"

"_Hobbes, get off the phone!_" Rose yelled. A scuffle, and then a slight crash.

"Rose?" Jackie asked uncertainly.

"_What does this button do?_" asked the other boy curiously.

"_Calvin!_" Rose, Hobbes, and another woman exclaimed. Mickey turned to Jackie.

"She met some interesting people when she was gone," he said slowly.

"_Hello. I'm Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North,_" the other woman said. "_Am I right in assuming that you're Rose's mother?_"

"Yes," said Jackie.

"_Do you have internet connection where you are?_" asked Hobbes.

"Wait, who are you people, bossing us around?" demanded Mickey.

"_Calvin,_" said Calvin.

"_Hobbes_."

"_Harriet Jones._"

A sigh rattled along the line. "_They're... my friends, I suppose. Just listen to them. They're better than me at this,_" said Rose.

"_Internet connection?_" asked Hobbes again. Mickey glanced at his laptop.

"Sure, just give me a sec. I need to pull over to find a hotspot."

He pulled into the parking lot of McDonalds, and opened Google Chrome. "Right. What now?"

"_Type, www dot army dot mod dot uk._"

He did so, then frowned. "Why am I on the British Military Website?"

"_Because you're going to fire a missile at 10 Downing Street,_" Calvin calmly informed him.

"WHAT?" Jackie yelled. "Why are we doing this. Where are you right now?"

A long pause. Then-

"_10 Downing Street,_" Rose said.

Several things happened at once. Jackie choked on her own saliva, Mickey's eyes bugged out, and on the other end of the line, a Slitheen emerged from the hole in the roof.

* * *

They had been so busy talking (and arguing) on the phone, that they only noticed the alien when it tried to kill them with a lead pipe. In retrospect, Rose's scream was probably the only thing that saved them from death by murderous farting monster. Hobbes reacted instinctively, and pounced the alien, slamming directly into it, and bouncing back before he could fall off the roof. The Slitheen wasn't so lucky. With a squelchy scream, it fell off the roof.

Five seconds later, there was a wet splat.

Rose peeked over the edge, before drawing back with a shudder. "Ew. That's a sight that'll haunt my nightmares for the next couple of centuries."

"I'm hoooome," Calvin sang, deadpan. Hobbes chuckled dryly.

"Well!" Harriet clapped her hands together. "One down. Several to go."

"_What's happening over there?_" Jackie asked.

"Just a minor annoyance," Rose said. "Have you got into the missile catalogue yet?"

"_Yeah,_" Mickey said. "_But we need a password._"

"Calvin?" Rose passed the phone over to him.

"Right. Uh... 'swordfish spongebob open albus user invoke 3-7-5-2'. Got that, Rose's Boyfriend?"

"_The name's Mickey. And yes, I have got it._"

"Great. Just send a small missile at us. We don't want to be blown up that much."

"'_That much'?_"

"Yeah. We might be able to escape."

"_Might?_" yelled Jacqueline Tyler. "_What do you think you're doing, buddy, risking my daughter's life like this!_"

Calvin shrugged, although Jackie couldn't see it over the phone. "Saving the world? If you don't like it, Earth will be destroyed and sold off to the highest bidder."

"_Sending the missile now,_" Mickey interrupted. "_You'd better have a plan._"

"How long until it hits?" Hobbes asked.

"_20 minutes._"

"We'll have a plan in 19. Give us some time. We're making this up as we go."

He pressed the disconnect button before any protests were raised, and turned back to the others. "Right. Plans."

"I'm all out," Calvin admitted.

"None here."

"Sorry."

"All the Slitheen are in the building, right?" Rose put in.

"Yesss... all except the one that attacked your boyfriend."

"So... lock the doors, keep them in?"

"Great idea!"

"It's okay," said Calvin grudgingly. "But what do we lock the doors with?"

"Keys!" exclaimed Harriet, holding up a ring with several identical silver keys hanging off it. "I... uh, 'appropriated' these a few weeks ago. They're master keys."

"'Appropriated'?" asked Calvin, raising an eyebrow. "Don't you mean, 'stole'?"

"Eh," Harriet shrugged, tossing a key to everyone. "To-may-to, to-mah-to."

"I claim the wagon," Calvin declared. "Let's go, everyone."

"We're locking ourselves in a building with murderous aliens that are trying to kill us," Rose said slowly.

"Yes? You have a problem with that?" Calvin scowled.

"...no. Let's go."

"Ten four."

* * *

15 minutes and 12 seconds later, Hobbes bumped into Harriet, who had just finished locking all of the second floor windows.

"How are we for time?" she asked.

"5 minutes, roughly."

Calvin emerged from a broken-down wall. "And I took care of the ground floor. We're good."

"Good job. Where's Rose?"

"I left her being chased by a Slitheen."

There was an angry scream, as Rose crashed through the (very thin) wall, creating yet another hole that the carpenters would never really get around to fixing, due to a missile being about to crash in less than five minutes.

"Calvin, you JERK!" yelled Rose.

"Gee, this brings back memories," Calvin muttered.

"A la Susie," Hobbes agreed.

"By the way, the last Slitheen came back to the building. I locked the door behind it."

Awkward pause.

"Well, that's... convenient," Hobbes said. Calvin nodded.

"Yeah, I was kinda expecting to have to do something overly dramatic to take care of it."

Harriet tapped her fingers impatiently against the wall. "Sorry to interrupt, but there's about 3 minutes until the missile hits. Shouldn't we try to get out?"

"No need," Calvin assured her. "We can just go in the Time Machine."

Harriet had half opened her mouth, as if she was about to ask a question, but then closed it. "Nevermind. As long as you're sure it'll work."

"Where did you park it?" Rose asked.

"'The first closet on the right hand side of the staircase of the third floor'," Calvin quoted. "All aboard!"

The unlikely group piled themselves into the wagon, and Calvin started up the motor. "Now, pre-flight safety check!"

"We're about to get blown up by a missile that we basically sent at ourselves! We don't need a safety check!"

"Of course we do! Seatbelts?"

"CALVIN!" everyone screamed. Hobbes took the opportunity to send the wagon into First Gear, and they rocketed off down the highway.

"_Spaceman Spiff is back in his vehicle!_"

"Shut up," Rose requested, as they neared the staircase again. Hobbes hit the anti-gravity button, and they sailed up the staircase. They arrived in the hallway.

"Right! Where's the closet?" Hobbes asked.

"One minute!" Harriet sing-songed.

"Uh... uh... uhh..." Calvin spun around. The doors were all identical. "That one!" he guessed. They flung open the door. Thankfully, the Time Machine was in.

"Everyone in!"

"Three...two...one..."

The explosion shook the building to the ground, and the roof collapsed inwards. But it didn't matter, because the Time Machine was gone.

* * *

From the McDonalds where Jackie and Mickey were parked, they could see the missile's progress through the sky. When it hit, and the building collapsed in an implosion of shrapnel, Jackie began to sob.

"Miss me?" asked a familiar voice. Jackie sat upright.  
"Rose! We thought you were... you were..."

"Dead?" supplied a boy with spiky yellow hair. "I wish. Thanks to my clever plan-"

"It was my idea!" objected Rose, which instigated a lengthy argument between her, the boy, and a stuffed tiger.

"This is..." Mickey began.

"Odd?" suggested Jackie. "Yeah, I think so too. At least she has friends."

"One of them's six, and the other's a stuffed animal," he pointed out.

"Well..." Jackie sounded unsure. "I'm sure she has her reasons."

"Yeah, but are they good ones?"

The argument finished up, Rose and the boy having seemingly deferred to the tiger, and they turned to Mickey and Jackie.

"Hello," said the boy. "I'm Calvin. And we need to take Harriet Jones home right now. We'll meet you back at your place. I'm sure Hobbes will explain everything to you."

Jackie eyed the stuffed tiger uneasily.

"See you!" Rose chirruped.

They both climbed into the cardboard box that stood behind them. A crack in reality appeared before it, and the box flew away.

Hobbes cracked his knuckles, and readied the rubbed mallet. This was going to be an awkward discussion.

* * *

"Well," said Rose an hour later. "The aliens are gone, no one knows it was our fault a major landmark got demolished, Harriet is back, and we're having fun watching Calvin try to explain quantum mechanics and time travel to my mum and boyfriend."

"All in all, a good day," agreed Hobbes, sipping at his glass of pineapple juice. "You've packed your bags, right?"

"Sure," Rose nodded, patting a pink satchel carefully. "Everything I could possibly need. And then some."

Hobbes ran a claw along the edge of his glass. "Are you sure you want to come?"

"Just try and convince me not to. The universe _is _amazing. I've seen it, and now I can't go back."

"You know..." Hobbes began thoughtfully. "...there are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. I know a planet where it's entirely made out of glass. Every person, every animal, every building." He grinned, as if to say _we really should go there sometime_, and continued. "I bet if we searched hard enough, there'd be people made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. There's a whole universe out there to discover, and it's all in the confines of some tiny little cardboard box that happens to be sitting in your lounge room right now. The question is, are you coming?"

Rose clapped politely. "Quite the little speech."

Hobbes grinned bashfully. "Thanks. But are you coming?"

The question hung in the air. Rose grinned happily. "Well, what do you think?"

Hobbes leapt to his feet, tail flicking frantically up and down. "Come on, Rose! We've got work to do!"

* * *

**(A/N:**

**The last little line of dialogue was taken from the Seventh Doctor's episode 'Survival' and twisted to my own fiendish means. Thank you, thank you.**

**Thanks once again to my lovely beta, A Drama Queen, who is repeatedly right, no matter how hard I try to stop her.**

**Now, how come you've got a two-day-early update? Well, today's my birthday. I'm now 13, and I figured a good break from tradition (namely, me giving _you _a present) would be appropriate. My birthday wish is to somehow be mentioned on TvTropes, but that's not gonna happen soon.**

**Check out my profile. There's a listing in the links section for the Calvin Who theme music I've put on my YouTube channel.**

**Be awesome! And give me reviews! That's my birthday wish.**

**~Kitty)**


	11. Episode 6:1

_**Episode 6:1- Dalek**_

* * *

**(Disclaimer: Do you wanna fight a Dalek? Or play Calvinball on Woman Wept?)**

* * *

"Welcome, Slimy Girl, to Woman Wept!" yelled Calvin, stepping out into the bright gleam of a thousand frozen waves, forming into one gorgeous planet.

"Wow!" exclaimed Rose. "This is... this is..."

"Brilliant, absolutely brilliant," Hobbes nodded. "And the best place in the Universe to play Calvinball."

"Calvinball," Rose mused. "Calvinball. A bit egotistical, to name a game after yourself."

Calvin pouted.

"That's not his worst crime," Hobbes said. "He 'discovered' a dinosaur skeleton a few relative years ago, and named it the 'Calvinosaurus',"

"Seriously?"

"That's not even the worst bit," Hobbes laughed. "It turns out the skeleton wasn't actually a dinosaur anyway. It was a bunch of rubbish someone had left lying around in the dirt."

Calvin glared at them angrily. "One day," he vowed. "I will find the Calvinosaurus, name it after myself, travel back in time, and sic it on you."

"How threatening," Rose snickered. "Unless it turns out to be an itsy-bitsy little herbivore." She held up her thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. "That would be extremely terrifying, I'm sure."

"Shut up, _Girl._" Calvin stomped over to the Time Machine, and pulled a giant sports bag out, grunting slightly. "Right. Calvinball. Spread these around the area, we need to make a proper Calvinball field."

Out of the bag came three rocks, a bunch of croquet wickets, several mallets, a plastic chicken, a picnic blanket, a fez, a backcatcher mask, the shuttlecock from a badminton set, tennis racquets, a volleyball net, a pogo stick, a box of jelly babies marked 'DO NOT EAT', a plastic partridge in a pear tree, one and a half cricket bats, several black masks, and a ball, among other things.

"Okay, I don't even want to know how you got that all in there," Rose said, staring.

"It's bigger on the inside," Hobbes supplied.

They quickly got to work, spreading the items around the place. Calvin helped Hobbes put up the volleyball net on the peak of a particularly large wave, and Rose stuck the wickets firmly into the dry ice. Calvin picked up the masks and tossed one each to Hobbes and Rose.

"Masks?" Rose asked. "Why on Woman Wept do we need masks?"

"DO NOT QUESTION THE MASKS," Calvin yelled, making her jump. Rose hurriedly put it on. Calvin tossed the ball up and down, and twirled it expertly on one finger. "Right. Rules. This is the Calvinball."

Rose waited, but nothing else seemed forthcoming.

"..and?" she asked, after what seemed an age.

"You can't play it the same way twice."

"That's it?"

"Yep! Now, sing with me the Calvinball theme song!"

He cleared his throat and belted out; "Other kids' games are all such a bore!

They've gotta have rules and they gotta keep score!

Calvinball is better by far!

It's never the same! It's always bizarre!

You don't need a team or a referee!

You know that it's great, 'because it's named after me!" He quickly passed the Calvinball over to Hobbes. "The next person to touch the Calvinball without touching the Fez of Doom is declared a Raxacoricofallapatorian, and must be blown up by the Missile of Madness!"

"What?" yelled Rose, standing still as her two friends ran around like lunatics.

"You didn't touch the Fez, Rose," Hobbes commented, now bouncing up the waves on the pogo stick, which is easier said then done on dry ice. Rose picked up the Fez from where it had landed, and idly put it on.

"Wait," she said. "So I can make up any rule I want?"

"As long as you're not doing it more than once, yeah!" screamed Calvin, who was currently undercover in the Blag Zone, whatever that meant.

An evil smile spread across the teenager's face.

* * *

"All young boys or tigers are now subject to the Rule of Anachronism, which states that everything is wrong, including this!" Rose yelled, standing on one leg with her arms tied behind her back, and a rubber duckie on her left shoe.

"What does that mean for us?" Hobbes asked, twirling around the Pole of Raining in a spangled pink tutu.

"It means that a shouting match is now engaged between you and Mud," Rose said, untying her left hand with a spare hedgehog. Calvin, whose name had somehow been demoted to Mud, ran over to one of the two Judgement Waves. Hobbes stood at the other.

"YOU'RE WRONG!" screeched Calvin.

"NO, YOU'RE WRONG!" Hobbes yelled back.

"YOU'RE WRONG!"

"YOU'RE WRONG!"

"ADMIT IT, YOU KNOW NOTHING!"

"NO!"

"NO!"

"NEVER!"

"YOU'RE WRONG!"

* * *

"Hobbes has stumbled into the Twilight Zone, and has been set upon by the Vampires of Sparklee!" Calvin directed. His name was now Bin McMud the Second, after an incendiary meeting with Rose's Fez of Power, which had received an upgrade. Rose's new name was now Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. Hobbes had somehow been able to stay the same, and was now facing the price.

"Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-banana," sang Rose, dancing to the beat of the pogo stick, which was hopping by itself.

"Score!" exclaimed Hobbes, kicking the Calvinball through the Pacman Wicket and up Mount Doom. "I'm out of the Twilight Zone, and have scored an extra few Lady Gaga points."

"Dum-dum-duhhh," Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way sang, pointing a Finger of Doom at him, and stomping ominously for extra effect. "Your Gaga points have been subverted into Hannah Montana points, via the evil accordance of Evil Overlord Rule the Eleventeenth."

"Noooo!" Hobbes sobbed, sinking to the ground. "WHYY?"

BING! BING!

The players all froze.

BING! BING!

"Rose?" Hobbes asked.

"Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way!" she hissed.

"Whatever. Is that your phone?"

"No. That's not my ringtone, remember?"

"It's the Time Machine phone," exclaimed Bin McMud the Second.

"You got the Time Machine working again?" Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way asked.

"Yeah," Bin said, nodding from behind his thick layer of mud makeup.

"What was wrong with it?" Hobbes asked, shucking off his tutu and rubbing off his lipstick.

"Someone-" Bin glared accusingly at Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, and scowled. "-someone left a greasy chip on the console. It mutated a few relative days ago, and attacked the interior of the Time Machine. She wasn't happy."

"The Time Machine wasn't happy?" asked Enoby.

"Nope. It's sentient, as you may recall from the Interlude."

Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way thought for a moment. "...nope. Not remembering this."

"Doesn't matter." Bin McMud the Second finished prettying himself up, and shook his hair back to normal spiky proportions. "Right. Let's go see what the Time Machine wants, and hope she's not overeating about something."

"What about the equipment?" asked Hobbes.

Bin had already started walking towards the Time Machine. "Doesn't matter. We've got a time machine, we can come here five seconds after we left. And we can stop referring to ourselves by our changed names now."

"We're not," said Ebony- oops, my mistake, Rose.

"No, the narration is. Never mind. Let's see about the Time Machine."

Calvin passed Hobbes, who was typing into an interface. "What's happening, buddy?"

Hobbes frowned, and poked the screen, which squeaked. "It's... a distress call."

"Are we going to answer it?" Rose joined them at the screen.

Hobbes poked the screen, which squealed in a higher pitch than before. "We have to. They set up a virus in the message, which they aren't supposed to be able to do."

"Wait, who's 'they'?" Calvin asked.

"Whoever sent the message. And the virus, which is a really nasty one. We have to go to the origin point of the call. We can't go over it; can't go under it, can't go around it..."

"We're going to have to go through it," Calvin decided, rolling up his sleeves.

Rose snorted. "What's this, some kinda bear hunt?"

Calvin threw on a jacket, and held on to the railing while he set the directions to accept the call. "You could say that."

"Let's go, then," Hobbes said. "Then, we can get back to Calvinball."

"Great." Calvin hit the button with gusto, and a little bit too much force. "I hate it when the person at the other end's only gone and lost their cat up a tree. It's just annoying."

* * *

"What a beautiful day!" Rose exclaimed, twirling as she bounded out of the Time Machine.

"It's a museum," Calvin said, excited. He dashed around a bit, and returned, looking disappointed. "No dinosaurs."

"But here's a Slitheen," pointed out Hobbes, tapping on the display case. A shrivelled head sat on a velvet cushion.

"Ergh," said Rose, just as Calvin said, "Cool!"

The trio split up, walking around the museum, and occasionally calling out the names of things that they recognized. Rose swore she saw a futuristic-looking hair dryer. But it was Hobbes who found the most unusual item of all.

"Rose... Calvin... I think you need to have a look at this."

"What is it?" Rose asked, curious. She reached the glass case where Hobbes was standing, and gasped.

"This better be interesting..." Calvin grumbled. "I was looking at a- oh. Wow."

What they were currently staring at was a detailed replica of the Transmogrifier Gun. It was perfect in every detail, even the tiny chip on the base from when Calvin had angrily drop-kicked it across the control room. Calvin removed his own Gun from his pocket and held it up to the light.

"Someone..." Rose said quietly. "Is a _really _big fan of yours."

"It's an exact copy," agreed Hobbes.

Calvin delivered a swift kick to the Plexiglass case, and hopped back clutching his foot in pain. He glared at the case as if it had offended him somehow, and zapped it with the Transmogrifier Gun. The front side of it vaporised into multicolored bubbles that floated through the air. Calvin snatched it up, and compared the two.

"Nope," he said. "It's not a 're the same one."

Rose took it from him, and checked it over. He was right. She lowered it slowly. "So... what does that mean for us?"

"It means..." he said, looking around. "...that at some point in the future, there's going to be a paradox."

"Calvin," Hobbes said conversationally. "Did you know that most museums have alarms to warn security when you take things out of their displays?"

Calvin looked shocked. "Really?"

The room lit up red, and flashing lights and alarms turned on all over the room.

"Yeah, really," Hobbes nodded, as a bunch of armed guards swarmed in and escorted them from the room.

"Why does this stuff always happen when I'm around you two?" Rose grumbled.

"We have talent," Hobbes said, sounding like he was being squished up against the chest of a security guard. "Mmph. Mmmmph."

* * *

The tall man in the black business suit paced unrelentlessly around the trio of time travellers. "You know..." he said. "...I've heard a lot about you, Mr Calvin."

"Oh?" Calvin asked. "If it was the Noodle Incident, I deny everything. It never happened."

"The Noodle Incident?" the man asked. "No. Never heard anything about that. But we did find a lot of information; news reports, photos, eyewitness, about you being in various parts of history, usually accompanied by a tiger and a girl. Now, I wonder where they are, these friends of yours?"

"Hello!" Rose waved.

"No, no, no, not you. Sometimes you do appear in these reports, but not always. There's a black girl in there too-"

("Slightly racist of you," Hobbes scowled. The man paid him no attention.)

"-a redhead, a ginger and a girl with dark brown hair. And the tiger's not here either."

Calvin considered. "Don't know anyone like that, apart from the girl with dark brown hair, and I'd never be seen dead with her anyway. As for the tiger, well," he waved a hand in Hobbes's general direction. "There you are."

"A stuffed tiger," the man's brow darkened. "Who do you think you're talking to? Do you even know who I am?"

"Christopher Eccleston?" Calvin guessed.

"NO! I am Henry Van Statten, alien artefact collector extraordinaire, and you two are the biggest experts on alien life I've ever known about."

"Us three," Rose corrected.

Van Statten glared. "There's only two of you! Do I look stupid to you?"

"Yes," she told him honestly. This was apparently not the best thing to say. His face turned beetroot-red, and she was sure that steam would come pouring out of her ears.

"Now, now, Tyler, what have I told you about aggravating evil alien dictators?" Calvin muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

"He's not a dictator," Hobbes said. "Or alien. Or even necessarily evil."

Calvin thought for a moment, and shrugged. "Eh. The point still remains."

"_Right, _little girl," Van Statten hissed. "_You,_" he pressed a button on the intercom system. "You can go with my assistant. He'll take care of you while _we _talk." He made it sound like _talking _was a thing that you didn't want to be doing anytime soon.

"Sure, sure," Rose grumped. "Send me off with your assistant. And you boys can have all the fun."

Henry Van Statten smiled, and even though his teeth were immaculate, it was a horrible smile. "Yes, we do. See you around, girlie."

His assistant, who was a young boy around Rose's age, arrived at the door, and took her down the hall. The door shut with an ominous _snap_, and Calvin stared at it for a moment, before getting down to business.

"So. What's the big deal around here? Why so many guards? It's just a museum."

Van Statten raised a finger up in the air. "Ah, but not just any museum. It's a museum of alien history."

"Right. That's the reason there aren't any dinosaurs. But why did you call us here? And, for that matter, how did you do it?"

"We have dinosaurs, actually, but that's beyond the point. We called you in for the main reason that you're clearly aliens, as you're capable of time travel."

"Hold on, hold on!" Calvin protested. "That's insane troll logic right there. Just because there happens to be people that look like us in those places, at those times, means we're capable of time travel and therefore aliens."

"Yes."

Hobbes and Calvin shook their heads at each other.

"Calvin," Hobbes whispered. "Should we hit him on the head, so he can see me?"

Calvin considered. "No. If we keep it quiet, you can be my secret weapon."

"Oh goodie," Hobbes deadpanned. "I always wanted to be a secret weapon. You do realize that's what America called the nuclear weapons?"

Calvin wasn't listening, and had kept on talking to Van Statten. "What do you need us for, really?"

He nodded. "We need you to examine an alien organism that we found and bought a few years ago. Since you're an expert, presumably, you should be able to tell us all about it."

"Righto!" Calvin yelled in a mock-British accent, leaping up from his seat. "We mustn't waste time, old chap, then? Tally-ho and all that!"

"Cup of tea, my dear fellow?" Hobbes added in possibly the worst attempt at an English voice there will ever be. Fortunately, only Calvin and us heard him.

"Security coding Bad Wolf One," said Van Statten quietly to a guard, who nodded in recognition, and keyed that code into an access panel. The director of the alien museum followed the mad boy and his tiger out into the hallways.

* * *

"So, I'm Rose," said Rose to Statten's assistant. "Who are you?"

"I'm Adam," replied Adam. "Adam Mitchell. I'm Van Statten's personal assistant." He puffed himself up in pride, and immediately lost any respect Rose had ever had for him.

"Uh..." Rose struggled for words, and gave up. "...that's nice. What do you do?"

He shrugged. "I mostly just buy stuff. On Ebay."

"That's nice," Rose repeated, not finding the need to waste any more words on him.

They reached a doorway that had a scrap of paper pasted to it. The paper read "Adam's Place" and looked frankly kind of pathetic. A smily face was drawn underneath, in a vague attempt to make it look more cheerful. It didn't work.

"My office," he explained, and pushed open the door. It wasn't in the least 'bigger on the inside'. In fact, if possible, it was smaller. He gestured mildly to a chair. "You can sit down if you want."

Rose did. Adam shuffled awkwardly around.

"...uh..." he said after about a minute of this silence had passed. "So. You want to do something?"

Rose tilted her head. "What kind of 'something'?"

"Um, I could show you those articles with... you and your... friend? Son?"

Rose crinkled her nose in disgust. "Ew. Not my son. And not... not really my friend either. But sure. Let's see."

Adam opened up a file with a question mark printed on it in big black ink. "Well, we found this one of you at the Boston Tea Party."

Rose looked at it. It appeared that Hobbes was attempting to push Calvin into the water, while she was laughing nearby. "Nope. Haven't done that yet."

Adam looked confused. "Okay, then. There was this article about a space probe on the Moon, where they found footprints of... girl's flip-flops. And pawprints. And a golf ball."

Rose scrutinized the article, which was from _New Scientist_. "Really? Only one golf ball? I could've sworn we left a few..."

"So you really did go?" Adam said, surprised. "Really, really?"

"Really, really," Rose laughed. "Let's see the next one!"

They went through the rest of the photographs and articles, Rose gleefully pointing out some of the places they'd been, and quickly setting the other ones aside. There was no point in causing a paradox, after all. Finally, they came to the last article, which was from a gossip magazine a few years after Rose had been born. Rose read the article's title, and froze, her face turning stony. She scanned it, looking more and more upset as she went. Quickly, she stuffed it in her pocket, and plastered a smile on her face. "Alright. That's that done. So what else is interesting around here?"

"You can't do that!" Adam objected. "That's property of Mr Van Statten!"

Rose pulled off her coat and draped it over the back of the chair. "I'm sure you can make an exception for me, yeah?"

"I... I guess..." he stammered, face turning slightly red.

"Thank you. You are sweet," Rose said, breathing out a mental sigh of relief. She would have to talk to Calvin and Hobbes later about the article. "Can we go see what the others are doing, then?"

Adam's face fell. "Sorry. We can't."

"Oh." Rose did her best to look disappointed and moistened her lips slightly. "Are you sure?"

"Well..." Adam moved over to his old fashioned PC, standing forlornly in the corner, and switched it on. It booted up surprisingly fast for such a beat-up looking computer. "...we could check the monitors. I guess."

Rose leaned forwards in her seat, searching the rows of images, before pointing at a certain one. "There!"

Adam clicked on it, and it enlarged to fill the screen. "They're apparently in the Cage," he said, attempting to be professional.

"The Cage?" Rose wondered. "It sounds like it has a capital letter. What do you keep in the cage?"  
Adam scrunched up his face slightly. "Well, it's the only living creature that is kept around here."

"But what is it?" she prodded.

"See for yourself," he said, pressing the arrow keys, so they could both have a better view of the action going on it the Cage.

* * *

Down in the Cage (which, coincidentally, _did _have a capital letter) some extremely dramatic action was going on. Have you ever noticed that you can't type sarcasm?

Calvin and Hobbes stood staring at something that resembled a giant metal pincushion with a toilet plunger coming out the front. It didn't move in the slightest.

"Are you sure it's alive?" Hobbes asked. Calvin relayed this question to Van Statten, who simply shrugged.

"It moves occasionally, and starts shouting out nonsense about 'the Predator' and 'the destroyer'. But other than that, it just stays put. Do you recognise it?"

"The Destroyer," Calvin mused. "That would be a cool nickname. Nope. Don't know what it is, sorry. Hey, saltshaker thing!" This was directed at the robot. "Do you know who I am?"

To everyone's surprise, the creature-thing moved to point its eye stalk directly at Calvin and Hobbes. The stalk flickered with a dim blue light.

"YOU... ARE... THE... DESTROYER," it croaked in a mechanical monotone.

Calvin stared. "Okay..."

"THE-DESTROYER-MUST-BE-EXTERMINATED," it continued, gradually picking up speed and volume. "EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE."

A streak of bright blue light shot out of its plunger. Hobbes dragged Calvin out of the way just before he was vaporized from existence. More streaks of light, accompanied by more yells of 'EXTERMINATE'.

"Run!" Hobbes yelled, tugging at the door of the Cage. It opened, and he tumbled out, followed by Calvin and Van Statten. He slammed it heavily, and locked it, panting like a dog. Which is an odd thing for a cat to do.

"What is it?" Van Statten demanded. "Do you know? How does it know you? What should we do?"

Calvin considered. "I don't know, no, no idea, and stop asking me questions I don't know the answer to. And by the way, bye."

"What?"

But by that time, the boy and the stuffed tiger were long gone. They had dashed off down the hallway, leaving the director of the illegitimate alien museum standing there, mouth half-open, and looking like a complete moron.

"What?" he repeated stupidly. Behind him, the door clicked twice, and began to creak open.

Ready or not, here it comes.

* * *

**(A/N- **

**This has to be the most adventurous divergence from canon I've made so far. And I plan to keep going like this! Thanks to A Drama Queen, who is being way too perceptive for her own good. I really need to do something about that. It might involve a Mind Probe...**

_**No! Not the Mind Probe!**_

**Ahem. Hm. Also thanks to all the people in the PPC chat room, who have given me a new perspective on metaphors, and also have had the courtesy to laugh at my work when I cue them in. Thanks, guys! **

**THINGS I PLAN TO ADD IN THAT YOU WON'T EXPECT...** (spoilers, sweetie!) **...**

An organization called A Charitable Earth run by a girl with a penchant for explosives

Australian Indoor-Rules Quidditch

More Harry Potter references

Someone called Sentience... I wonder who they are! ^_^

And a Calvinosaur. Eventually.

**I appreciate all feedback, as always, so PLEASE review!**

**Good night, citizens. Good night.**

**~Kitty, who is signing off after an extraordinarily long AN. She'd better stop now, and stop talking about herself in Third Person.)**


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